Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

The narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada (1969), Van Veen spends two summers, the summer of 1884 and that of 1888, at Ardis, the family estate of Daniel Veen (Van's and Ada's Uncle Dan). According to Mlle Larivière (the governess of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette, Daniel Veen's daughter), Ardis means in Greek "point of an arrow." On the other hand, the toponym Ardis seems to hint at paradise.

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), King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved) was given his cognomen by Amphitheatricus, a not unkindly writer of fugitive poetry in the liberal gazettes: 

In his commentary and index 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) mentions King Thurgus the Third, surnamed the Turgid (the grandfather of Charles the Beloved), and his mistress Iris Acht (a celebrated actress):

At the beginning of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972) the narrators mention the exact level of the moment: 

Here's the person I want. Hullo, person! Doesn't hear me.

Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun.

Describing Hugh Person's courtship of Armande, the narrators of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972) mention the battlements of Armande's Dragon (as they call Drakonita, a skiing resort near Witt):

Friday morning. A quick Coke. A belch. A hurried shave. He put on his ordinary clothes, throwing in the turtleneck for style. Last interview with the mirror. He plucked a black hair out of a red nostril.

Describing Hugh Person's courtship of Armande, the narrators of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972) mention fairy-tale element and its Gothic rose water:

Friday morning. A quick Coke. A belch. A hurried shave. He put on his ordinary clothes, throwing in the turtleneck for style. Last interview with the mirror. He plucked a black hair out of a red nostril.

Describing Hugh Person's meeting with Armande in Witt (a Swiss mountain resort), the narrators of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972) mention the hero's interview with the mirror:

Friday morning. A quick Coke. A belch. A hurried shave. He put on his ordinary clothes, throwing in the turtleneck for style. Last interview with the mirror. He plucked a black hair out of a red nostril.

Describing the odd Boschean death of Daniel Veen (Van's and Ada's Uncle Dan, the father of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a few last drops of ‘play-zero’ that nurse Bellabestia (Bess) managed to extract orally out of Dan's poor body:

Describing his reunion with Ada in December 1892, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions two unrelated gypsy courtesans, a wild girl in a gaudy lolita, poppy-mouthed and black-downed, picked up in a café between Grasse and Nice, and another, a part-time model, aptly nicknamed Swallowtail by the patrons of a Norfolk Broads floramor:

In society, Daniel Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's Uncle Dan, the father of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette) is known as Durak Walter or simply Red Veen: