Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that, when he was a child, all colors made him happy, even gray:

All colors made me happy: even gray.

My eyes were such that literally they

Took photographs. Whenever I'd permit,

Or, with a silent shiver, order it,

Whatever in my field of vision dwelt -

An indoor scene, hickory leaves, the svelte

Stilettos of a frozen stillicide -

Was printed on my eyelids' nether side

In his 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) quotes the first two lines of Goethe’s Erlkönig (1782) in Zemblan translation and mentions the ballad's broken rhythm:

Line 662: Who rides so late in the night and the wind

The list of the things that Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) loathes ends with sharks:

Now I shall speak of evil as none has

Spoken before. I loathe such things as jazz;

The white-hosed moron torturing a black

Bull, rayed with red; abstractist bric-a-brac;

Primitivist folk-masks; progressive schools;

Music in supermarkets; swimming pools;

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 "aerial adjutant:"

The characters in VN's novel Ada (1969) include Ben Wright (nicknamed Bengal Ben because of his "petards"), the English coachman in "Ardis the First:"

In March 1905 Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific. In a letter to Van (written a month before Demon’s death) Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) calls herself "a petite fille modèle practicing archery near a vase and a parapet:"

Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) says that observation is not always the mother of deduction:

Here Ada herself came running into the room. Yes-yes-yes-yes, here I come. Beaming!

In one of her letters to Van (written after Van left Ardis forever) Ada mentions an extract of scarlet aril, the flesh of yew, just only yew:

[California? 1890]

Describing a game of Flavita (the Russian Scrabble) that he played with Ada and Lucette soon after 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 Benten lamp that Ada would prefer but that is out of kerosene:

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia, Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra. After the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Ada mentions spies from Terra:

He kissed her half-closed lips, gently and ‘morally’ as they defined moments of depth to distinguish them from the despair of passion.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s fun to be two secret agents in an alien country. Marina has gone upstairs. Your hair is wet.’

‘Spies from Terra? You believe, you believe in the existence of Terra? Oh, you do! You accept it. I know you!’