162: Esmeralda and Her Parandrus –given that the works of Vadim are known to reference Nabokov’s own works,Esmeralda and Her Parandrus is often cited as the hardest of all of his. works to identify; one of the characters in L.A.T.H. refers to Vadim as the author of the Esmerald and Her Pandar. This, of course, is but a misnaming of the novel, but it creates a orthographic doppelganger nonetheless. This is concurrent with the theme of mirror imagery. Brian Boyd sees E.a.H.P. as a parallel to Lolita; Esmeralda, most famously, is the gypsy maiden in Hunchback of Notre Dame and a Parandrus is a mythical beast with the ability to shift shapes and color. The car that follows HH and Lolita on their road trip is both gypsy-esque and chameleonic in nature.
162: Botticelli and Shakespeare…Primavera and Ophelia – the mad scholar weaves together this respectively distinct masters of their craft, something that does not quite work. Yet, upon closer examination we see that Primavera is a picture of springtime with an angel picking peaches. In the subsequent chapter we see a reference to Serov’s painting Girl With Peaches; the peach represents fertility, ripeness and all that is bountiful and unbitten about nymphets. The fake parallel to Serov’s painting replaces peaches with lilacs, which would fall in line with the reference to Ophelia.
162: Rosedale Lake might be a reference to the lake that HH and Charlotte Hayes frequent. HH mentions the possibility of drowning CH, leaving now evidence of his crime. The twister disposed of its victims in a similar way.
163: New Orthography might just show what meticulous care VV is taking in preparation for Bel, but if I am not mistaken Pnin has an equally well cared for collection of books. Additionally, Pnin refers to the new style and the old style, which we as readers aren’t really told much about; anyway, his birthday falls on February 15th in the new style, which is the date referenced in the subsequent chapter as the day on which VV is writing.
163: “Sponge…toothpaste” While HH took great care to prepare tons of cute little outfits for Lolita, VV is far more concerned with Bel’s living conditions. This represents a key distinction between HH and VV, in that HH buys clothes in order to take them off.
163: Klingsor’s Illustrated Encyclopedia—direct reference to Tristan Klingsor, born Leon Leclere—L.L, H.H., V.V., all double initials—who was a perennially prolific poet and painter, whose first collection of poems was called filles-fleurs, translating to flower girls. This is in line with the springtime innocence Nabokov tends to associate with nymphets.
163: Levitan’s Clouds above a Blue River does not reference a specific painting, but rather the artist. Levitan, a Russian painter touted for advancing the “mood landscape” made several paintings depicting the tranquility of nature; the theme serves to represent VV’s overall sought after aesthetic.
165: “Ulysses was written in Zurich and Greece….too many foreign words” VV recounts a complaint of a student; the underlying irony is that Nabokov’s novels are jam-packed with cross-linguistic references.
165: Sarah Bernard is a direct reference to the Paris-born actress, Sarah Bernhardt, who was dubbed “the most famous actress in the world.” VV describes her as a notorious actress in Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan. She was renowned for sleeping in a coffin in order to more thoroughly understand the oft-tragic roles she played. While she did not ever have a role in a rendition of Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich, we can speculate about what a tragic role she would have played.
166: “the bedroom “enchanted” her;” enchanted is in quotes because in French one might say “enchanté” upon seeing the room. Enchanted is but a direct translation and thus deserves the quotation marks. In most cases he goes above and beyond in making sure his texts function cross-linguistically (i.e. more than just a direct translation).
167: “Says a scribble in my diary” directly parallels the tiny handwriting of Humbert and the way in which he would recount directly from his diary.