Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Hurricane Lolita that swept from Florida to Maine:

It was a year of Tempests: Hurricane
Lolita swept from Florida to Maine.
Mars glowed. Shahs married. Gloomy Russians spied.
Lang made your portrait. And one night I died. (ll. 679-82)

Describing Judge Goldsworth’s house, 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 atmosphere of damnum infectum in which he was supposed to dwell:

Describing the death of Queen Blenda, 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 drunk who started to sing a ribald ballad about "Karlie-Garlie:"

The characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) include Odon (a world-famous actor and Zemblan patriot who helps the king to escape from Zembla) and his mother Sylvia O’Donnell (a wealthy socialite with several ex-husbands who helps the king immigrate to America and gets him a job at Wordsmith University):

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), he once told Shade "people who live in glass houses should not write poems:"

At the beginning of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he was the shadow of the waxwing slain by the false azure in the windowpane:

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) calls himself “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)

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) the number 342 reappears three times. 342 Lawn Street is the address of the Haze house in Ramsdale. 342 is Humbert Humbert's and Lolita's room in The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where they spend their first night together). According to Humbert Humbert, between July 5 and November 18, 1949, he registered (if not actually stayed) at 342 hotels, motels and tourist homes.

In VN’s novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941) Sebastian Knight’s first book (1925) is entitled The Prismatic Bezel:

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 great Starover Blue:

We heard cremationists guffaw and snort

At Grabermann's denouncing the Retort

As detrimental to the birth of wraiths.

We all avoided criticizing faiths.