Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

Please read Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations on Pale Fire, Ada and other Nabokov works here.

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 13 October, 2026

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) mentions the society sculptor and poet Arnor:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 13 October, 2026

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) quotes Arnor’s poem about a miragarl (mirage girl), for whose "careful jewels" a dream king in the sandy wastes of time would give tri stana verbalala (three hundred camels) ut tri phantana (and three fountains):

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 12 October, 2026

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), he once overheard Lolita say to Eva Rosen (Lolita's classmate at Beardsley College, a little displaced person from France), “You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own:”

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 12 October, 2026

In a dialogue on the porch of The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) a stranger (apparently, Clare Quilty) tells Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) that his child needs a lot of sleep and that sleep is a rose, as the Persians say:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 10 October, 2026

Describing the death of Queen Blenda (the mother of Charles Xavier Vseslav), 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 one alin by which Countess de Fyler (the queen's lady-in-waiting) beat all seven counsilors, dressed in their formal splendor and carrying like plum cakes replicas of various regalia, who came striding down the stairs of stone, in dignified haste, and spat out the news of the queen's death: