Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

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

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 8 November, 2025

Describing the first occasion on which Ada had glimpsed him, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a motor landaulet that Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) and Ada hired to Radugalet:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 7 November, 2025

In a little poem he composed for Rita (a girl whom he picked up one depraved May evening somewhere between Montreal and New York, or more narrowly, between Toylestown and Blake, at a drakishly burning bar under the sign of the Tigermoth), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Diana (the ancient Roman goddess of hunting):

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 7 November, 2025

Describing the young Prince's chaste romance with Fleur de Fyler, 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 his - or rather, his grandfather's - cheval glass, a triptych of bottomless light, a really fantastic mirror, signed with a diamond by its maker, Sudarg of Bokay:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 6 November, 2025

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 a Zemblan moppet who at a picnic for international children cried to her Japanese friend: "Ufgut, ufgut, velkum ut Semblerland! (Adieu, adieu, till we meet in Zembla!):"

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 5 November, 2025

Describing the discovery of a secret passage that leads from the Onhava Palace to the Royal Theater, 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 game of chess played by Monsieur Beauchamp (the Prince’s French governor) and Mr. Campbell (the Prince’s Scottish tutor):