VN's novel Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969) is prefaced with a brief editorial note:
With the exception of Mr and Mrs Ronald Oranger, a few incidental figures, and some non-American citizens, all the persons mentioned by name in this book are dead. [Ed.]
In "Ада, или Отрада" (Ada, or Joy, 2022) A. Babikov renders this as follows:
Кроме Рональда Оранжера и его жены, нескольких второстепенных лиц и немногих неамериканских подданных, никто из тех, кто назван в этой книге по имени, до настоящего времени не дожил. <Ред.>
"Citizens" should be translated grazhdan (a word used by Babikov, poddannykh means "subjects"). This is the first (but by no means the last) of the translator's countless blunders. On the whole, his new "transversion" is even more vulgar than the attempts of some earlier paraphrasts.
According to Babikov, Ada is VN's novel-museum. In his memoir essay O Chekhove ("On Chekhov") A. Serebrov (Tikhonov) quotes Chekhov's words (that VN would certainly know) "a novel is a whole palace and the reader should be at ease in it, he should not be surprised or bored, as in a museum:"
Чтобы строить роман, необходимо хорошо знать закон симметрии и равновесия масс. Роман - это целый дворец, и надо, чтобы читатель чувствовал себя в нем свободно, не удивлялся бы и не скучал, как в музее. (III)
May I use this opportunity and draw your attention to my own (precise and poetic) Russian translation (2020) of Ada. I still have a few copies for sale (1 000 000 $, a rare and limited pirate edition of VN's Forbidden Masterpiece).