Stan Kelly-Bootle replies to Alexey Sklyarenko (who is not sure if his idle thoughts are relevant):
In VN’s “indivisibly monist” world, all things are jovially inter-related and cunningly co-relevant.
With the possible exception of any real proximity between "Больстон" and the cities/towns called Boston. The earlier English Boston in merry Lincolnshire (from which the Massachusetts city gets its name) is said to be a topnym of St Botolph’s Town, suitably contracted via Bo[tolph]ston after a heavy night on the cider. Suggestive links with Nabokov are (i) Botolph is the patron saint of travellers, and it’s well documented that VN travelled more than most (ii) VN was probably acquainted with the 1950s Cambridge University poetry journal, St Botolph’s Review.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
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From AS:
Disa's Villa Paradisa is near Nice (see Kinbote's note to ll. 433-434). Its Russian name, Ницца (pronounced Nitsa), rhymes with a number of words, one of them being bol'nitsa ("hospital"; the Ницца-больница rhyme occurs, for instance, in Mayakovsky's poem about his unhappy Odessa love Облако в штанах, "The Trousered Cloud"). Bol'nitsa comes from bol'noy (adj., "ill", "sick"; noun, "patient"), but also has bol' ("pain"; "ache") in it. Kinbote's wife Disa is Duches of Payn, of Great Payn and Moan (герцогиня Больстонская, из великой Боли и Стона in Vera Nabokov's translation; note that "Больстон" is not too far from the American Boston).
Note that, according to Carolyn Kunin's theory, Shade is not murdered but hospitalized.