Don B.Johnson wrote in relation to ADA and LATH : " It is a curious and significant fact that at leasst two of VV´s wives have the letter sequence "BL" in their names (...) All of these characters are related to Count Starov and it is their incestuous consanguinity that is denoted by the alphabetic emblem "BL" in their names. The sound sequence is, moreover, not randomnly chosen. As we have noted previously in connection with "Ada", Nabokov denies any deep meaning in hisuse of the incest theme, saying merely that he likes "the bl" soun in siblings, bloom, blue, bliss, sable (SO 122-123). "BL" is Nabokov´s private emblem for the incest theme (...) "Worlds in Regression: Some novels of Vladimir Nabokov", Ardis publishers, 1985, page 139.

Starovs, Blaubergs and Blues could be related, they also metamorphose into a doctor (Starov, after Drs.Coates and Oates, or Dr. Colt). Inspite of all the links offered below, I only kept one advice, obtained thru CK ("a wild goose chase")

In PALE FIRE there is Starover Blue : CK's notes to line 189, Starover Blue: See note to line 627. This reminds one of the Royal Game of the Goose [...] a wild-goose game, rather (go to square 209). // CK's notes to line 627: The great Starover Blue:Presumably, permission from Prof. Blue was obtained but even so the plunging of a real person[...] into an invented milieu where he is made to perform in accordance with the invention, strikes one as a singularly tasteless device [...]This name, no doubt, is most tempting [...] his grandfather, a Russian starover (accented, incidentally, on the ultima), that is, Old Believer (member of a schismatic sect), named Sinyavin, from siniy, Russ. "blue." [...] begot a son who eventually changed his name to Blue and married Stella Lazurchik. There is also a Dr.Colt and a journalist, Jim Coates, with the misprinted mountain/fountain and a gushing blue-haired lady who told Shade: I loved your poem in the Blue Review./...our two souls would be / Brother and sister trembling on the brink/Of tender incest./

TRLSK presents us with a doctor Starov, dr.Coates and dr Oates: even the door is as dead as its nail.[...] Coates (the doctor) is right when he says that my heart is too small for my size.// In 1929, a famous heart-specialist, Dr Oates, advised Sebastian to spend a month at Blauberg, in Alsace... (there are other references to blue and blau, chessboards and all)

LATH: I felt against my raised knees the fifty-year-old folded chessboard, Nikifor Starov's gift // an unexpected patron in the person of Count Starov, a grave old-fashioned Mason* // "In the temple we shall build, Sir," said Iris[...]Count Starov "chewed his lips," as old men are wont to do in Russian novels. //I've discovered at last someone who speaks both languages, yours and mine, as two natives in one, and can make all the edges fit. I am thinking of Nadia Starov."// Nadezhda Gordonovna Starov was the wife of a leytenant Starov (Christian name unimportant), who had served under General Wrangel//I translate: a White Russian, Wladimir Blagidze, alias Starov, who was subject to paroxysms of insanity[...]// my trusty old mashinka ("machine"), Count Starov's wedding present[...] //The eyes,once an irresistible hazel-green[...]The nose, inherited from a succession of Russian boyars, German barons, and, perhaps (if Count Starov who sported some English blood was my real father), at least one Peer of the Realm.

* Architecture: The main church of the St. Alexander Nevsky Monastery founded by Peter the Great in 1710-1713 to commemorate the victory of the Russian troops in the Neva battle of 1240. Built in 1776-1790 by the architect Ivan Starov// The Cathedral of the Holy Trinityof the Izmailovsky Life-Guards Regiment Built in 1828-1835 to Vasily Starov's design.

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