----- Original Message -----

From: Donald B. Johnson

To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 11:07 PM

Subject: Fwd: A Response to Rosenbaum

----- Forwarded message from CGuerin@aol.com -----
    Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 11:18:18 EST
    From: CGuerin@aol.com
Reply-To: CGuerin@aol.com
 Subject: A Response to Rosenbaum
      To:

As one of those who claimed that "literary history has more of a claim on  an
unfinished work than its author," let me offer the following, the ending of
Chapter 35 of Ada, or Ardor, as evidence.

       . . . about the rapture of her identity. The asses who  might   really
think that in the starlight of  eternity, my, Van Veen's,   and her, Ada
Veen's, conjunction,  somewhere in North America, in the nineteenth century
represented  but one trillionth of   a trillionth part of a pinpoint planet's
significance can bray   ailleurs, ailleurs,  ailleurs (the English word would
not supply   the onomatopoeic element; old Veen is  kind), because the rap-
[ 220 ]      ture of her identity, placed under the  microscope of reality
(which is the only reality), shows a  complex system of those   subtle bridges
which the senses  traverse?laughing, embraced,   throwing flowers in the air?
between  membrane and brain, and  221.05 which always was and is a form of
memory,  even at the moment   of its perception. I am weak. I write  badly. I
may die tonight.   My magic carpet no longer skims over crown  canopies and
gaping nestlings, and her rarest orchids.  Insert.


While Ada may be a complete work, it is perhaps, as has been  written
elsewhere, one of VN's weakest.   It is weak only as a  whole.  A passage of
such ineffable beauty as the one just quoted, is worth  any number of
"completed novels," because it says something that has never been  said before,
or at least never so well.  (VN was conscious of this, I  think, hence the
concluding disclaimer and the ruse that it is almost an  afterthought written
on a "writing pad" for insertion.)  If The  Original of Laura, as I suspect,
contains even a few pages that can stand with  this, the world deserves to read
them.

----- End forwarded message -----

---

As one of those who claimed that "literary history has more of a claim on an unfinished work than its author," let me offer the following, the ending of Chapter 35 of Ada, or Ardor, as evidence. 

 

	. . . about the rapture of her identity. The asses who might
	really think that in the starlight of eternity, my, Van Veen's,
	and her, Ada Veen's, conjunction, somewhere in North Amer-
	ica, in the nineteenth century represented but one trillionth of
	a trillionth part of a pinpoint planet's significance can bray
	ailleurs, ailleurs, ailleurs (the English word would not supply
	the onomatopoeic element; old Veen is kind), because the rap-

[ 220 ]

	ture of her identity, placed under the microscope of reality
	(which is the only reality), shows a complex system of those
	subtle bridges which the senses traverse—laughing, embraced,
	throwing flowers in the air—between membrane and brain, and
221.05	which always was and is a form of memory, even at the moment
	of its perception. I am weak. I write badly. I may die tonight.
	My magic carpet no longer skims over crown canopies and
	gaping nestlings, and her rarest orchids. Insert.

 

While Ada may be a complete work, it is perhaps, as has been written elsewhere, one of VN's weakest.   It is weak only as a whole.  A passage of such ineffable beauty as the one just quoted, is worth any number of "completed novels," because it says something that has never been said before, or at least never so well.  (VN was conscious of this, I think, hence the concluding disclaimer and the ruse that it is almost an afterthought written on a "writing pad" for insertion.)  If The Original of Laura, as I suspect, contains even a few pages that can stand with this, the world deserves to read them.