Subject: THOUGHTS
From: "Chase Carnot" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:12:39 -0400

I recently finished *Ada, or Ardor* by VN and while some of the book was
very interesting, it is part of the downward trend in books I have read by
Nabokov.  (*Pale Fire *being the best by far.)

*Ada* makes numerous references to Russian and Western European literature
that I never even heard of.  However, the one motif I was able to pick up on
was the Terra/Antiterra doubling.  After finishing the book and trying to
find ways of understanding it, this is the image that kept returning.

I have found that the Terra/Antiterra doubling works similar to the
unreliable narrator which is used throughout VN's work.  This works through
the form of the novel.  *Ada* is essentially the memoir of someone living on
Antiterra.  In the course of the narrative we learn more about the parallel
plane of Terra which shares much more in common with our own Earth.  Things
still seem quite different there though.  My contention is that Terra is in
fact Earth (gasp!) but the method by which Van and others access information
about Terra is a greatly flawed science.  Back on Earth we are accessing a
document that reports information from Antiterra.  The final document (*Ada*)
is just as flawed through a similar method of access and, as it were,
translation.

Has anyone else noticed this?  What do you think?  Can anyone illuminate the
text for me in another way?

Thanks
CM Carnot

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