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Re: ADA's grim Vincent Veen (fwd)
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From: David Morris <fqmorris@yahoo.com>
> From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
>
> My friend and fellow annotator Alfred Appel, Jr. felt that Nabokov's last
three novels marked a creative decline, partly because he thought Nabokov had
isolated himself in Switzerland and had therefore cut himself off from the rich
vein of American popular culture mined so colorfully in LOLITA, PNIN and PALE
FIRE (the last of which, though written in France and Switzerland, Appel deemed
the product of memory banks still green with American currency).
Hello Nabokov Forum,
I have just finished _Ada_ and am somewhat disappointed with it. It has its
charm, but it's not my favorite Nabokov, at least not at this point in my
understanding of it. The recounting of an incestuous affair (over the period
of an entire lifetime) between two very rich aristocrats was never enough to
make me care. The tone is haughty, and the people are almost super-human so I
never really believed the narrator nor felt much sympathy. Also, the creation
of an alternate world in and of itself is not enough for me. It’s akin to Sci
Fi, which I think is below Nabokov if that’s all there is to it. Also, the
word play throughout, while fun (and I know lots of it went right past me),
isn’t enough for a compelling novel either.
As I was reading I found myself asking over and over if a hidden story was
about to be revealed (akin to the hidden story in Pale Fire), which I suspected
had to do with the “terrors of Terra” alluded to early on in the book. My
early thought was that the entire book was the fantasy of a schizophrenic. But
if something like that were the case I would expect a little less of the
“story” and a little more of Terra and Terra’s relation to Antiterra. I admit
I’m perplexed by the meaning of the next-to-last chapter where it seems to be
revealed that the “government” has been hiding the truth about Terra all along,
and that with this fact becoming known Antiterra was thus becoming more and
more of an illusion. Am I way off base here? If that were the case then the
last chapter returning to Antiterra with the suicides of Ada & Van, though
beautifully written, make no sense to me.
Sincerely,
David Morris
__________________________________________________
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> From: "Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
>
> My friend and fellow annotator Alfred Appel, Jr. felt that Nabokov's last
three novels marked a creative decline, partly because he thought Nabokov had
isolated himself in Switzerland and had therefore cut himself off from the rich
vein of American popular culture mined so colorfully in LOLITA, PNIN and PALE
FIRE (the last of which, though written in France and Switzerland, Appel deemed
the product of memory banks still green with American currency).
Hello Nabokov Forum,
I have just finished _Ada_ and am somewhat disappointed with it. It has its
charm, but it's not my favorite Nabokov, at least not at this point in my
understanding of it. The recounting of an incestuous affair (over the period
of an entire lifetime) between two very rich aristocrats was never enough to
make me care. The tone is haughty, and the people are almost super-human so I
never really believed the narrator nor felt much sympathy. Also, the creation
of an alternate world in and of itself is not enough for me. It’s akin to Sci
Fi, which I think is below Nabokov if that’s all there is to it. Also, the
word play throughout, while fun (and I know lots of it went right past me),
isn’t enough for a compelling novel either.
As I was reading I found myself asking over and over if a hidden story was
about to be revealed (akin to the hidden story in Pale Fire), which I suspected
had to do with the “terrors of Terra” alluded to early on in the book. My
early thought was that the entire book was the fantasy of a schizophrenic. But
if something like that were the case I would expect a little less of the
“story” and a little more of Terra and Terra’s relation to Antiterra. I admit
I’m perplexed by the meaning of the next-to-last chapter where it seems to be
revealed that the “government” has been hiding the truth about Terra all along,
and that with this fact becoming known Antiterra was thus becoming more and
more of an illusion. Am I way off base here? If that were the case then the
last chapter returning to Antiterra with the suicides of Ada & Van, though
beautifully written, make no sense to me.
Sincerely,
David Morris
__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com