Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) calls 1958 “a year of Tempests” and mentions Mars:

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)

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) completes his work on Shade’s poem on October 19, 1959 (the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum). In a letter of Oct. 9, 1888, to Mme Lintvaryov (the owner of a farm in Ukraine where Chekhov spent the summer) Chekhov (who just received the Pushkin Prize, 500 rubles) says that the prize award will be officially announced at the Academy on October 19:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a singing cicada:

Today I'm sixty-one. Waxwings

Are berry-pecking. A cicada sings. (ll. 181-182)

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a singing cicada:

Today I'm sixty-one. Waxwings

Are berry-pecking. A cicada sings. (ll. 181-182)

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), the king escaped from green Zembla clad in bright red clothes. As pointed out by Mary McCarthy in her introductory essay ("A Bolt from the Blue"), "Zembla has turned red after the revolution that began in the Glass Factory.

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Dorothy Vinelander (Ada’s sister-in-law) marries a Mr Brod or Bred who subsequently directs archeological reconstructions at Goreloe (the ‘Lyaskan Herculanum’):

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) John Shade writes his last poem and dies in July. According to Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), the poem was begun at the dead center of the year, a few minutes after midnight July 1 (note to Lines 1-4).

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) calls the little scissors with which he pares his fingernails “a dazzling synthesis of sun and star:”

The little scissors I am holding are

A dazzling synthesis of sun and star.

I stand before the window and I pare

My fingernails and vaguely am aware

Of certain flinching likenesses: the thumb,

Our grocer's son; the index, lean and glum

When Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) makes a pass at her on his first morning at Ardis, Blanche (a French maid at Ardis) looks at a sparrow hopping up the paved path toward the bit of baby-toed biscuit she had thrown to him:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Andrey Vinelander (Ada’s husband) addresses his father-in-law (Demon Veen, son of Dedalus) “Dementiy Labirintovich” and calls him balagur (a wag):