Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN's novel Ada (1969) the phrase "destroy and forget" occurs at least four times:

'Good for you, Pompeianella (whom you saw scattering her flowers in one of Uncle Dan's picture books, but whom I admired last summer in a Naples museum). Now don't you think we should resume our shorts and shirts and go down, and bury or burn this album at once, girl. Right?’

'Right,' answered Ada. 'Destroy and forget. But we still have an hour before tea.' (1.1)

Describing Aunt Maud's room in Canto One of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the forlorn guitar:

Describing Aunt Maud's room in Canto One of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the verse book open at the Index (Moon, Moonrise, Moor, Moral):

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), after Line 274 of Shade’s poem there is a false start in the draft:

I like my name: Shade, Ombre, almost 'man'
In Spanish... (note to Line 275)

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his childhood and says that he was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud:

In his short poem “The Nature of Electricity” quoted by 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) in his Commentary John Shade mentions streetlamps:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his dead daughter and mentions the talks with Socrates and Proust in cypress walks:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his childhood and says that his God died young:

My God died young. Theolatry I found

Degrading, and its premises, unsound.

No free man needs a God; but was I free?

How fully I felt nature glued to me

And how my childish palate loved the taste

Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste!

My picture book was at an early age

The painted parchment papering our cage:

Mauve rings around the moon; blood-orange sun

In a letter to Ada Dr. Krolik (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the local lepidopterist, Ada's beloved teacher of natural history) says that bobo’s of the harmless psoriatics protect them from bubas and buboes:

In his Commentary to Shade's poem 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) describes Judge Goldsworth's house as "an old, dismal, white-and-black, half-timbered house, of the type termed wodnaggen in my country:"

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