Please read Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations on Pale Fire, Ada and other Nabokov works here.
At the beginning of VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin’s father uses the phrase pryamo gora s plech (“a real weight off my shoulders”):
Hello! This is my first post on thenabokovian.
I am currently writing my research paper on Nabokov's Lolita for my master's degree. I was wondering whether anyone knows if "ces matins gris si doux..." (p.49) is a quote from a poem as Nabokov usually puts his quotes between quotation marks.
Thanks in advance.
SBD
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin wants to show to the boy of a lady from Russia a conjuring trick and finds a small, folding chessboard of morocco leather in the lining of his old jacket:
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin only at the last moment sees exactly what kind of eternity is obligingly and inexorably spread out before him:
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin, who just made the acquaintance of a young Russian woman at a German spa, tries to unravel in his mind the impression of something very familiar:
The main character in VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930), Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin, has the same surname as Aleksey Lvovich Luzhin, the hero of VN’s earlier story Sluchaynost’ (“A Matter of Chance,” 1924):
Он служил лакеем в столовой германского экспресса. Звали его так: Алексей Львович Лужин.
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) poetry throws Luzhin into a state of severe perplexity and sorrow:
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin’s wife inspects and arranges the apartment "rented with a long view but at short notice" (as her father jokes):
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) the guests at the Christmas party thrown by Luzhin senior include Bersenev and Rosen (Luzhin’s schoolmates):
In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin senior tells his son “let's go and see if there are any krasnye griby (red mushrooms) under the fir trees:”