Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing Gradus’s day in New York, 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 Nikita Khrushchyov's visit to Zembla and "quotes" the Soviet leader's words "Vï nazïvaete sebya zemblerami, a ya vas nazïvayu zemlyakami (You call yourselves Zemblans and I call you fellow countrymen!):"

Describing Gradus’s day in New York, 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 agate type in which the Rachel Jewelry Company in Brooklyn advertised for a jewelry polisher who "must have experience on costume jewelry:"

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions the fantasies of Poe that he tore apart:

We heard cremationists guffaw and snort

At Grabermann's denouncing the Retort

As detrimental to the birth of wraiths.

We all avoided criticizing faiths.

The great Starover Blue reviewed the role

Planets had played as landfalls of the soul.

Describing his insomnias, 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 Wagner record and hallucinations:

In his commentary and index to Shade's poem 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 young Baron Mandevil (a man of fashion and Zemblan patriot) and his cousin (the experimentalist, madman and traitor):

Describing IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) in Canto Three of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a medium who smuggled in pale jellies and a floating mandolin:

Among our auditors were a young priest

And an old Communist. Iph could at least

Compete with churches and the party line.

In later years it started to decline:

Buddhism took root. A medium smuggled in

Pale jellies and a floating mandolin.

Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a March night and mentions funny creaking and other strange sounds:

In his commentary to Shade’s poem 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) describes Hazel Shade’s and his own attempts to decipher a message from the ghost and mentions a secret design in the abracadabra:

Jane allowed me to copy out some of Hazel's notes from a typescript based on jottings made on the spot: 

The three main characters in VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) - the poet John Shade, his commentator Charles Kinbote (who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) and his murderer Jakob Gradus (a member of the Shadows, a regicidal organization) - seem to represent three different aspects of one and the same person whose "real" name is Vsevolod Botkin. An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus after the tragic death of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel Shade’s "real" name).

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a hive in which he is locked up:

What moment in the gradual decay

Does resurrection choose? What year? What day?

Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape?

Are some less lucky, or do all escape?