Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

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

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 1 September, 2026

During her second road trip with Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) across the USA, Lolita falls ill and on Tuesday, 28 June 1949, is hospitalized in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains). Visiting Lolita at the hospital, Humbert Humbert brings her, among other books, The History of Dancing and The Russian Ballet:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 1 September, 2026

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript), Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” (Lolita's married name) died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 31 August, 2026

The characters in VN's novel Ada (1969) include Kim Beauharnais, a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis whom Van Veen (the narrator and main character) blinds for spying on him and Ada and attempting to blackmail Ada. Describing Kim Beauharnais's album, Van calls Kim "Bewhorny:"

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 30 August, 2026

Describing John Shade's last birthday, 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) mentions a buchmann, a little pillar of library books forgotten by Sybil Shade (the poet's wife):

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 29 August, 2026

During her second road trip with Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) across the USA, Lolita falls ill and on Tuesday, 28 June 1949, is hospitalized in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains). Visiting Lolita at the hospital, Humbert Humbert asks her if the staff is feeding her well:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 28 August, 2026

During her second road trip with Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) across the USA, Lolita falls ill and on Tuesday, 28 June 1949, is hospitalized in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains). Describing Lolita's hospitalization and his stay at Silver Spur Court, Elphinstone, Humbert Humbert mentions some "serum" (sparrow's sperm or dugong's dung) to which Lolita splendidly reacted and a sparrow that perched on the saddle of the landlady's bike: