Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

One of the three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), Jakob Gradus (Shade’s murderer) is the son of Martin Gradus, a Protestant minister in Riga:

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions “Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp:”

While snubbing gods, including the big G,

Iph borrowed some peripheral debris

From mystic visions; and it offered tips

(The amber spectacles for life's eclipse) -

How not to panic when you're made a ghost:

Describing Victor Vitry's film vesion of his novel Letters from Terra, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions ‘Bergson’s Duration’ and ‘Whitehead’s Bright Fringe:’

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) calls his Muse "my versiple:"

Dressing in all the rooms, I rhyme and roam

Throughout the house with, in my fist, a comb

Or a shoehorn, which turns into the spoon

I eat my egg with. In the afternoon

You drive me to the library. We dine

At half past six. And that odd muse of mine,

My versipel, is with me everywhere,

In carrel and in car, and in my chair. (ll. 941-948)

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) Kinbote (Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions Amphitheatricus, a writer of fugitive poetry who gave King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved) his cognomen and who dubbed Onhava (the capital of Zembla) "Uranograd:"

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 Colonel Peter Gusev (King Alfin’s constant "aerial adjutant") and his son Oleg (the beloved playmate of Prince Charles Xavier Vseslav):

In his forewod and 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 Dr. Nattochdag, the head of Kinbote's department who was nicknamed Netochka by his colleagues:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969), the element that destroys Demon Veen (Van’s and Ada’s father who in March 1905 perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific) is air:

Numbers and rows and series — the nightmare and malediction harrowing pure thought and pure time — seemed bent on mechanizing his mind. Three elements, fire, water, and air, destroyed, in that sequence, Marina, Lucette, and Demon. Terra waited. (3.1)

At the beginning of Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says:

Now I shall spy on beauty as none has
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as
None has cried out. Now I shall try what none
Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done. (ll. 835-838)

Describing his enforced twelve-year-long separation with Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions numbers and three elements (fire, water, and air) that destroyed, in that sequence, Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother), Lucette (Van's and Ada's half-sister) and Demon (Van's and Ada's father):

He traveled, he studied, he taught.