Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

VN's penultimate completed novel, Transparent Things (1972) revolves around the four visits of the hero--sullen, gawky Hugh Person--to Switzerland. In a letter of August 23, 1836, from Geneva (where he arrived four days before) to his mother Gogol describes Switzerland and says that, after the sunset, the Alps alone shine on the sky as if transparantnye (a Gallicism no longer in use):

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), Dr Fitzbishop (a surgeon in the Kalugano hospital) is what Russians call a poshlyak ('pretentious vulgarian'):

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth's twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions the details of the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:

When he tells about the Antiterran L disaster, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) uses the phrase in the beau milieu (right in the middle): 

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions his second collection of poetry Night Rote:

Dim Gulf was my first book (free verse); Night Rote

Came next; then Hebe's Cup, my final float

In that damp carnival, for now I term

Everything "Poems," and no longer squirm.

In VN's novel Ada (1969) twelve-year-old Ada confesses that she is sentimental:

‘I am sentimental,’ she said. ‘I could dissect a koala but not its baby. I like the words damozel, eglantine, elegant. I love when you kiss my elongated white hand.’

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) says that Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution:

The narrator and main character in VN's novel Dar ("The Gift," 1937), Fyodor Konstantinovhich Godunov-Cherdyntsev would have never met and fallen in love with Zina Mertz, if he did not move to 15 Agamemnonstrasse (the Shchyogolevs' Berlin address):

«Здравствуйте, – сказал Федор Константинович, кланяясь телефону, – мне Александра Яковлевна…»

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth’s twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Amerussia of Abraham Milton:

After the L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century electricity was banned on Demonia (Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra) and even its name became unmentionable: