Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

Please read Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations on Pale FireAda and other Nabokov works here.

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 28 June, 2025

In October 1905, in Mont Roux, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) and Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) meet in Bellevue (the Vinelanders' hotel) and make love in Les Trois Cygnes, Van's luxurious hotel:

 

arriving mont roux bellevue sunday

dinnertime adoration sorrow rainbows

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 26 June, 2025

Telling Van to stop his affair with Ada, Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) says that he believes in Van and his common sense: 

 

Demon regained his composure (if not his young looks) and said:

‘I believe in you and your common sense. You must not allow an old debaucher to disown an only son. If you love her, you wish her to be happy, and she will not be as happy as she could be once you gave her up. You may go. Tell her to come here on your way down.’

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 25 June, 2025

Before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Van that the Ladore pastures should be got rid of gradually, if the local squires don’t blow up that new kerosene distillery, the stïd i sram (shame) of our county:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 20 June, 2025

At the picnic on Ada's sixteenth birthday Mlle Larivière (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the governess of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette) mentions an English novel of high repute in which a lady is given a perfume called "Ombre Chevalier," which, according to Mlle Larivière, is really nothing but a fish:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 19 June, 2025

Describing the picnic on Ada's twelfth birthday, when he walked on his hands for the first time, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his adult incapacity to ‘shrug’ things off and wonders if it was only physical or did it ‘correspond’ to some archetypal character of his ‘undersoul:’