Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

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

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 30 May, 2026

Describing the King’s escape from Zembla, 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 King’s repeater that he pressed to find out what is the time:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 30 May, 2026

Describing his life with Rita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a blond, almost albino, young fellow with white eyelashes and large transparent ears, whom he and Rita found sleeping in their hotel room bed:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 29 May, 2026

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) the poet Shade and his commentator Kinbote (who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) live in New Wye (a small University town in New England) in Dulwich Road:

 

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 28 May, 2026

Describing his rented 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 his landlord’s four daughters (Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee) and the atmosphere of damnum infectum in which he was supposed to dwell:

 

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 28 May, 2026

The poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), John Shade lives in the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith:

 

I cannot understand why from the lake

I could make out our front porch when I'd take

Lake Road to school, whilst now, although no tree

Has intervened, I look but fail to see

Even the roof. Maybe some quirk in space

Has caused a fold or furrow to displace

The fragile vista, the frame house between