sharada + Nabokov + Ardis/Sidra + Man =
karandash + svoboda + Marina/Armina/Mirana/Ariman
shar - sphere; sherical
object; ball; zemnoy shar - the Earth, globe; vozdushnyi
shar - balloon; strait (cf. "the ha-ha of a doubled ocean" separating
America and Tartary, 1.3)
Ada - Ada Veen (1872-1967),
Van's sister and life-long lover
sharada -
charade
Ardis - the fabulous country
estate of Daniel Veen (Van's art-collecting uncle); Gr., the point of an arrow
(1.36)
Sidra - Gulf of Sidra, an inlet of the
Mediterranean, on the N coast of Libya; Professor Ivan Veen is the author
of Reflections in Sidra (3.7)
Man - Manhattan (the
Antiterran name of New York)
karandash -
pencil
svoboda -
freedom
Marina - Marina Durmanov
(Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother, Aqua's twin sister)
Armina - Demon Veen's
Mediterranean villa (according to Demon, Marina never realized it was an anagram
of the sea, not of her, 1.27)
Mirana - in
VN's Lolita (1.2), a luxurious hotel on the Riviera owned by
Humbert Humbert's father
Ariman - Russian spelling of
Ahriman (in Zoroastrianism, the evil spirit, incarnation of evil)
Alexey Sklyarenko