Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

Please read Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations on Pale FireAda and other Nabokov works here.

Aubrey McFate, Miranda twins & Lake Climax in Lolita Alexey Sklyarenko

The narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita (1955), Humbert Humbert dubs his devil "Aubrey McFate:"

 

Shelley’s incandescent soul, Earth & history in Pale Fire Alexey Sklyarenko

In his poem “The Nature of Electricity” quoted by Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) in his Commentary John Shade mentions Shelley’s incandescent soul that lures the pale moths of starless nights:

 

web of sense in Lolita & in Pale Fire Alexey Sklyarenko

In his diary Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) compares himself to an inflated pale spider that sits in the middle of a luminous web and gives little jerks to this or that strand:

 

beautiful bluish furs & Cantrip Review in Lolita Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his life with Rita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the beautiful bluish furs that Rita had been accused of stealing from a Mrs. Roland MacCrum:

 

Rita's navel, appendix & most appealing ensellure in Lolita Alexey Sklyarenko

Leaving Rita forever, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) tapes a note of tender adieu to her navel:

 

nature’s faithful hound in Lolita Alexey Sklyarenko

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), he is nature’s faithful hound:

 

I am trying to describe these things not to relive them in my present boundless misery, but to sort out the portion of hell and the portion of heaven in that strange, awful, maddening world - nymphet love. The beastly and beautiful merged at one point, and it is that borderline I would like to fix, and I feel I fail to do so utterly. Why?

Lolita as ghost novel Alexey Sklyarenko

In his Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the caretakers of the various cemeteries involved who report that no ghosts walk:

 

Gaston Godin & Gustave Trapp in Lolita; Gustave Leroy & M. Godard in The Visit to the Museum Alexey Sklyarenko

Humbert's chess partner at Beardsley, Gaston Godin (a character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) is a namesake of Gaston Leroux (1868-1927), a French writer of detective novels, the author of Le Fantôme de l'Opéra ("The Phantom of the Opera," 1909). Among the people with whose photographs Gaston Godin had decorated the sloping wall of his studio is Tchaikovski, a Russian composer (1840-93):

 

Au roi! in Lolita Alexey Sklyarenko

At Beardsley Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) plays chess with Gaston Godin (a professor of French):