Subject
Re: Brian Boyd's _Nabokov's ADA_, expanded edition
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"D. Barton Johnson" wrote:
> EDITOR's NOTE. This is a must for all serious readers of ADA and of Nabokov
> generally.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > The second, expanded edition of Brian Boyd's Nabokov's ADA: The Place of
> > Consciousness, has just been published by cybereditions.com: 352 pp. instead
> > of 245, including a new preface, four new chapters and two new indexes. It
> > can be purchased through cybereditions.com for $17.95.
> >
> > You may wish to recommend for your library as well as to order for yourself.
> >
> > >From the URL below (continuous despite the apparent line break)
> >
> > http://www.cybereditions.com/spis/runisa.dll?FY:CYVIEWSUMMARY:765847:10014
> >
> > you can acess the following description, and order the book directly:
> >
> > Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness
> > Brian Boyd
> >
> > Not only are Vladimir Nabokov's style and strategies richer than readers
> > have suspected, they also express an original philosophy of consciousness -
> > a lucid and coherent aesthetics, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. This
> > is the essential argument of Brian Boyd's Nabokov's Ada: The Place of
> > Consciousness, a study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive
> > guide to a great twentieth-century literary classic.
> >
> > Boyd reveals the myriad ways Nabokov found both to extol the amplitude and
> > freedom of consciousness and at the same time to deplore our appalling
> > entrapment in the self and the moment. Nabokov sought always to transcend
> > the limits of the mind, looking for intimations of some freer consciousness
> > beyond the mortal and material world. These attitudes, as Boyd shows, shape
> > every level of his fiction, from the patterning of phrases to the interplay
> > between reader and author.
> >
> > Ada is Nabokov's longest and lushest novel, and Boyd demonstrates how it
> > takes Nabokov's style and thought to new heights. Although the central
> > character, Van Veen, seems only to celebrate his love for his sister Ada,
> > Nabokov's own focus is as much on their far more ordinary half-sister,
> > Lucette, whom Van Veen and Ada overlook and tragically entangle in ways that
> > indict their own actions. Even after her suicide, Lucette returns to enrich
> > both the lives of Van Veen and Ada and their lyrical tribute to their past.
> >
> > In a new preface for Cybereditons, Brian Boyd places Ada in the context of
> > Nabokov's work, subsequent critical discussion, and his own later work. He
> > adds four new chapters, written in the late 1980s and the 1990s, offering
> > overviews of Ada from a variety of new vantage points. An Index of Passages
> > in Ada allows readers to check for discussions of particular chapters of the
> > novel, while a detailed General Index serves those interested in Ada in
> > particular or in tracing Nabokov's style or thought in general.
> >
> > With the appearance of this augmented edition of Nabokov's Ada: The Place of
> > Consciousness, Brian Boyd has greatly enhanced and updated the essential
> > guide both to the thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers
> > and to one of his most complex and rewarding works.
> >
> > Contents
> > Abbreviations
> > A Note on Ada Editions
> > Preface to First Edition
> > Preface to Second Edition
> > Part One: Nabokov and the Reader
> > 1 Introduction
> > 2 Independence and Pattern
> > 3 Resistance and Solution
> > Part Two: Nabokov and the World
> > 4 Space, Time and Consciousness
> > 5 Beyond Consciousness
> > Part Three: Ada: The Responsibilities of Consciousness
> > 6 Introduction
> > 7 Lucette
> > 8 Inseparable Fates
> > 9 Lucette and Others (1)
> > 10 Lucette and Others (2)
> > Part Four: Ada: The Metaphysics of Consciousnes
> >
> > 11 The Mysteries of Time
> > 12 In Time and Beyond
> > 13 Conclusion
> > Appendix: Spectral Hypotheses
> > Part Five: Ada: Epilogue and Introduction
> > 14 Ada through the Attic
> > 15 The Art and the Ardor of Ada
> > 16 Ada, or Amplitude
> > 17 Ada's Allure
> > Appendix: "Memoire," by Arthur Rimbaud
> > Notes
> > Index of Passages in Ada
> > General Index
> >
> > Some Comments on the First Edition
> > ". . . magnificent" - Simon Karlinsky, Washington Post
> >
> > "Brian Boyd . . . knows more about Nabokov's longest and most complex book
> > than any other scholar. . . . the book seriously engages Nabokov's
> > metaphysics and ethics and brings them to bear on his chef-d'oeuvre. . . .
> > stunning . . . a major contribution to Nabokov scholarship and a delight for
> > all serious students of Nabokov." - D. Barton Johnson, Slavic and East
> > European Journal
> >
> > ". . . exceptionally fine . . . provides not only the best commentary on the
> > novel, but also a most perceptive overview of Nabokov's art in general. . .
> > . a brilliant overview of Nabokov's metaphysics." - Stephen Jan Parker,
> > Understanding Vladimir Nabokov
> >
> > ". . . the most thorough-going investigation of Ada to date, and with
> > application outside this novel to Nabokov's entire production and
> > philosophy." - Jane Grayson, Slavonic Review
> >
> > ". . . the definitive work on Ada. . . . rivals Stanley Fish in showing, for
> > example, how readers are lulled into failures of judgment by the Rimbaud
> > intertext to the otherwise Marvellian passage beginning 'Stumbling on
> > melons, fiercely beheading the tall arrogant fennels with his riding crop,
> > Van . . . . ' Boyd's reading of these lines is one of the finest of
> > Nabokov's prose that I know." - Charles Ross, Modern Fiction Studies
> >
> > ". . . a deep and clear treatise of Nabokov's artistic ontology, where 'new
> > horizons loom on every page' (as William James said of another philosophical
> > work)." - Gennadi Barabtarlo, Phantom of Fact: A Guide to Nabokov's Pnin
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----
> >
> > Brian Boyd is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of
> > Auckland. He has written, among other works, Nabokov's Ada: The Place of
> > Consciousness (first edition, Ardis, 1985); a two-volume biography, Vladimir
> > Nabokov: The Russian Years (Princeton, 1990) and Vladimir Nabokov: The
> > American Years (Princeton, 1991); and Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of
> > Artistic Discovery (Princeton, 1999). He has edited Nabokov's
> > English-language novels, memoirs and screenplay (3 vols., Library of
> > America, 1996), and, with Robert Michael Pyle, Nabokov's Butterflies:
> > Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (Beacon, 2000). He is currently writing
> > an analysis of fiction in evolutionary and cognitive terms, a critical book
> > on Shakespeare, and a biography of the philosopher Karl Popper.
> >
> >
> EDITOR's NOTE. This is a must for all serious readers of ADA and of Nabokov
> generally.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > The second, expanded edition of Brian Boyd's Nabokov's ADA: The Place of
> > Consciousness, has just been published by cybereditions.com: 352 pp. instead
> > of 245, including a new preface, four new chapters and two new indexes. It
> > can be purchased through cybereditions.com for $17.95.
> >
> > You may wish to recommend for your library as well as to order for yourself.
> >
> > >From the URL below (continuous despite the apparent line break)
> >
> > http://www.cybereditions.com/spis/runisa.dll?FY:CYVIEWSUMMARY:765847:10014
> >
> > you can acess the following description, and order the book directly:
> >
> > Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness
> > Brian Boyd
> >
> > Not only are Vladimir Nabokov's style and strategies richer than readers
> > have suspected, they also express an original philosophy of consciousness -
> > a lucid and coherent aesthetics, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. This
> > is the essential argument of Brian Boyd's Nabokov's Ada: The Place of
> > Consciousness, a study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive
> > guide to a great twentieth-century literary classic.
> >
> > Boyd reveals the myriad ways Nabokov found both to extol the amplitude and
> > freedom of consciousness and at the same time to deplore our appalling
> > entrapment in the self and the moment. Nabokov sought always to transcend
> > the limits of the mind, looking for intimations of some freer consciousness
> > beyond the mortal and material world. These attitudes, as Boyd shows, shape
> > every level of his fiction, from the patterning of phrases to the interplay
> > between reader and author.
> >
> > Ada is Nabokov's longest and lushest novel, and Boyd demonstrates how it
> > takes Nabokov's style and thought to new heights. Although the central
> > character, Van Veen, seems only to celebrate his love for his sister Ada,
> > Nabokov's own focus is as much on their far more ordinary half-sister,
> > Lucette, whom Van Veen and Ada overlook and tragically entangle in ways that
> > indict their own actions. Even after her suicide, Lucette returns to enrich
> > both the lives of Van Veen and Ada and their lyrical tribute to their past.
> >
> > In a new preface for Cybereditons, Brian Boyd places Ada in the context of
> > Nabokov's work, subsequent critical discussion, and his own later work. He
> > adds four new chapters, written in the late 1980s and the 1990s, offering
> > overviews of Ada from a variety of new vantage points. An Index of Passages
> > in Ada allows readers to check for discussions of particular chapters of the
> > novel, while a detailed General Index serves those interested in Ada in
> > particular or in tracing Nabokov's style or thought in general.
> >
> > With the appearance of this augmented edition of Nabokov's Ada: The Place of
> > Consciousness, Brian Boyd has greatly enhanced and updated the essential
> > guide both to the thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers
> > and to one of his most complex and rewarding works.
> >
> > Contents
> > Abbreviations
> > A Note on Ada Editions
> > Preface to First Edition
> > Preface to Second Edition
> > Part One: Nabokov and the Reader
> > 1 Introduction
> > 2 Independence and Pattern
> > 3 Resistance and Solution
> > Part Two: Nabokov and the World
> > 4 Space, Time and Consciousness
> > 5 Beyond Consciousness
> > Part Three: Ada: The Responsibilities of Consciousness
> > 6 Introduction
> > 7 Lucette
> > 8 Inseparable Fates
> > 9 Lucette and Others (1)
> > 10 Lucette and Others (2)
> > Part Four: Ada: The Metaphysics of Consciousnes
> >
> > 11 The Mysteries of Time
> > 12 In Time and Beyond
> > 13 Conclusion
> > Appendix: Spectral Hypotheses
> > Part Five: Ada: Epilogue and Introduction
> > 14 Ada through the Attic
> > 15 The Art and the Ardor of Ada
> > 16 Ada, or Amplitude
> > 17 Ada's Allure
> > Appendix: "Memoire," by Arthur Rimbaud
> > Notes
> > Index of Passages in Ada
> > General Index
> >
> > Some Comments on the First Edition
> > ". . . magnificent" - Simon Karlinsky, Washington Post
> >
> > "Brian Boyd . . . knows more about Nabokov's longest and most complex book
> > than any other scholar. . . . the book seriously engages Nabokov's
> > metaphysics and ethics and brings them to bear on his chef-d'oeuvre. . . .
> > stunning . . . a major contribution to Nabokov scholarship and a delight for
> > all serious students of Nabokov." - D. Barton Johnson, Slavic and East
> > European Journal
> >
> > ". . . exceptionally fine . . . provides not only the best commentary on the
> > novel, but also a most perceptive overview of Nabokov's art in general. . .
> > . a brilliant overview of Nabokov's metaphysics." - Stephen Jan Parker,
> > Understanding Vladimir Nabokov
> >
> > ". . . the most thorough-going investigation of Ada to date, and with
> > application outside this novel to Nabokov's entire production and
> > philosophy." - Jane Grayson, Slavonic Review
> >
> > ". . . the definitive work on Ada. . . . rivals Stanley Fish in showing, for
> > example, how readers are lulled into failures of judgment by the Rimbaud
> > intertext to the otherwise Marvellian passage beginning 'Stumbling on
> > melons, fiercely beheading the tall arrogant fennels with his riding crop,
> > Van . . . . ' Boyd's reading of these lines is one of the finest of
> > Nabokov's prose that I know." - Charles Ross, Modern Fiction Studies
> >
> > ". . . a deep and clear treatise of Nabokov's artistic ontology, where 'new
> > horizons loom on every page' (as William James said of another philosophical
> > work)." - Gennadi Barabtarlo, Phantom of Fact: A Guide to Nabokov's Pnin
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----
> >
> > Brian Boyd is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of
> > Auckland. He has written, among other works, Nabokov's Ada: The Place of
> > Consciousness (first edition, Ardis, 1985); a two-volume biography, Vladimir
> > Nabokov: The Russian Years (Princeton, 1990) and Vladimir Nabokov: The
> > American Years (Princeton, 1991); and Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of
> > Artistic Discovery (Princeton, 1999). He has edited Nabokov's
> > English-language novels, memoirs and screenplay (3 vols., Library of
> > America, 1996), and, with Robert Michael Pyle, Nabokov's Butterflies:
> > Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (Beacon, 2000). He is currently writing
> > an analysis of fiction in evolutionary and cognitive terms, a critical book
> > on Shakespeare, and a biography of the philosopher Karl Popper.
> >
> >