Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) the poet Shade and his commentator Kinbote live in New Wye (a small University town). The Wye is a river in England and Wales. Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 is a poem by Wordsworth. In Canto One of his poem Shade mentions his frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith on its square of green:

I cannot understand why from the lake

At the end of his almost finished poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a Vanessa butterfly:

A dark Vanessa with crimson band

Wheels in the low sun, settles on the sand

And shows its ink-blue wingtips flecked with white.

And through the flowing shade and ebbing light

A man, unheedful of the butterfly -

Some neighbor's gardener, I guess - goes by

Trundling an empty barrow up the lane. (ll. 993-999)

At the beginning of Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions l'if, lifeless tree:

L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:

The grand potato. I.P.H., a lay

Institute (I) of Preparation (P)

For the Hereafter (H), or If, as we

Called it - big if! - engaged me for one term

According to John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962), IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) was a grave in Reason's early spring:

L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:

The grand potato. I.P.H., a lay

Institute (I) of Preparation (P)

For the Hereafter (H), or If, as we

Called it - big if! - engaged me for one term

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the svelte stilettos of a frozen stillicide:

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 -

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Ada, showing to Van her larvarium, says: ‘Je raffole de tout ce qui rampe (I’m crazy about everything that crawls):’

‘And now,’ she said, and stopped, staring at him.

‘Yes?’ he said, ‘and now?’

Describing a tremendous stretch of microfilm taken by Uncle Dan during his triple trip round the globe, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the third male member of the party, a real British brick:

To the words of a professor of physics “History has denounced him [the King of Zembla], and that is his epitaph" Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) replies that in due time history will have denounced everybody:

According to Pink (as in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Kinbote calls a professor of physics who joins in a conversation at the Faculty Club), history has denounced the last King of Zembla, and that is his epitaph:

According to 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), to the King’s question "how long will you be absent" the guard (handsome Hal) replied "yeg ved ik [I know not]:"