Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van’s and Ada’s father, Demon Veen perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific (3.7). It seems that Ada (who could not pardon Demon his forcing Van to give her up) managed to persuade the pilot to destroy his machine in midair. In Alexandre Dumas's “The Three Musketeers” (1844) Milady de Winter persuades John Felton, a Puritan, to kill Duke of Buckingham. In Lestrygonians, Episode 8 of Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), the Buckingham Palace hotel in Dublin is mentioned:

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) one of the chapters ends with a pseudo-Shakespearean quote:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), Uncle Dan bequeathed to nurse Bellabestia (‘Bess,’ Uncle Dan’s last mistress whom he had taken to Ardis because she managed to extract orally a few last drops of ‘play-zero’ out of his poor body) a trunkful of museum catalogues and his second-best catheter:

Describing the Night of the Burning Barn (when he and Ada make love for the first time), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the belated ignicolists:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Dorothy Vinelander (Ada’s sister-in-law) calls Ada la fille d’une actrice et d’un marchand de tableaux (“the daughter of an actress and an art dealer”):

It went on and on like that for more than an hour and Van’s clenched jaws began to ache. Finally, Ada got up, and Dorothy followed suit but continued to speak standing:

After the death of his grandson Eric (the young author of an essay entitled ‘Villa Venus: an Organized Dream’), David van Veen (a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction) resolved to erect a thousand and one memorial floramors (palatial brothels) all over Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set):

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (aka Demonia, Earth’s twin planet on which Ada is set), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the deepest thinkers, the purest philosophers, Paar of Chose and Zapater of Aardvark:

In VN’s poem Slava (“Fame,” 1942) the author’s visitor mentions osobennyi privkus anisovyi (the particular anise-oil flavor) of those strainings when he happened to write in a foreign language:

В длинном стихотворении "Слава" писателя,

так сказать, занимает проблема, гнетет

мысль о контакте с сознаньем читателя.

К сожаленью, и это навек пропадет.

When Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) leaves Ardis forever, the word “inkog” pops up in his stream of consciousness:

The express does not stop at Torfyanka, does it, Trofim?’

‘I’ll take you five versts across the bog,’ said Trofim, ‘the nearest is Volosyanka.’

His vulgar Russian word for Maidenhair; a whistle stop; train probably crowded.

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus’ mother mentions netki (nonnons), a toy that was once popular: