Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his dead daughter and says that she had strange fears, strange fantasies, strange force of character:

She had strange fears, strange fantasies, strange force

Of character - as when she spent three nights

Investigating certain sounds and lights

In an old barn. She twisted words: pot, top,

Spider, redips. And "powder" was "red wop."

She called you a didactic katydid.

According to 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 a skit performed by a group of drama students he was pictured as a pompous woman hater with a German accent, constantly quoting Housman and nibbling raw carrots:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his childhood and mentions hickory leaves and his favorite young shagbark tree:

All colors made me happy: even gray.

My eyes were such that literally they

Took photographs. Whenever I'd permit,

Or, with a silent shiver, order it,

Whatever in my field of vision dwelt -

An indoor scene, hickory leaves, the svelte

Stilettos of a frozen stillicide -

Was printed on my eyelids' nether side

Describing Gradus' appearance, 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 mineral blue of Gradus' jaw:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his childhood fit and says that he felt distributed through space and time: one foot upon a mountaintop, one hand under the pebbles of a panting strand, one ear in Italy, one eye in Spain:

A thread of subtle pain,

Tugged at by playful death, released again,

But always present, ran through me. One day,

When I'd just turned eleven, as I lay

Prone on the floor and watched a clockwork toy -

A tin wheelbarrow pushed by a tin boy -

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions winter's code:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane;

I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate

Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:

Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass

Hang all the furniture above the grass,

And how delightful when a fall of snow

At the beginning (and, presumably, at the end) of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) compares himself to the shadow of the waxwing:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. (ll. 1-4)

At the beginning (and, presumably, at the end) of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) compares himself to the shadow of the waxwing:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. (ll. 1-4)

Waxwings is a poem by Robert Francis (an American poet, 1901-87):

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his childhood fit and says that he felt distributed through space and time: one foot upon a mountaintop, one hand under the pebbles of a panting strand, one ear in Italy, one eye in Spain:

A thread of subtle pain,

Tugged at by playful death, released again,

But always present, ran through me. One day,

When I'd just turned eleven, as I lay

Prone on the floor and watched a clockwork toy -

A tin wheelbarrow pushed by a tin boy -

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 aeronaut (a well-known meteorologist) who drowned in the Gulf of Surprise: