Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): cart de van: Amer., mispronunciation of carte des vins; zhidovskaya: Russ. (vulg.), Jewish. (A.Sklyarenko)

Jansy Mello: Nabokov could not resist (good or bad) puns. In “Ada, or Ardor”, the French “évanouissement” (fainting) became “vanouissements: ‘Swooning in Van’s arms’” (Darkbloom).  Equally related to the hero’s name I found other two wordplays: Van’s “ant caravan to the oasis of the navel” (1,19 in a chapter that teems with puns) and “cart de van” (affording the real Van mild amusement) (3,8).

The latter alteration might be more complicated than just the sonorous association between “van” and “vin” (wine, in French), because Van chose to set down the word “cart” (instead of “carte”) thereby suggesting another vehicle (cart/van), one which now directs to an anagram that leads from horsecart (“a stink bomb had burst among the instruments in the horsecart.” 1,12)  to “a skit on Freudian dream charades (‘symbols in an orchal orchestra’)”, p.61/62.(notes).* 

What is VN’s malicious intention towards Freudian analysts? Is there a connection between Van and his uncle Ivan’s death by tuberculosis and his 18-year-old sister Marina’s grief?

Darkbloom’s annotation to a “Jewish prerogative” (3,8) probably indicates Freud. **

More distantly, “van” brings together dreaming Lucette and Cinderella/Blanche.#

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*horsecart  (1,12); clockwork luggage carts (1,19); a mule-drawn cart (1,24); apple-cart girls(1,27); horse-drawn vegetable cart(2,10); ‘cart de van’(3,8); p.61. horsecart: an old anagram; p.402. cart de van: Amer., mispronunciation of carte des vins.

the last furniture van (1,10. Where Lucette jumps into, i.e., travels in her dreams); (Blanche jumped out of) a pumpkin-hued police van (1,19); a parked furniture van(2,3); the ‘cart de van’ (3,8); p.402. cart de van: Amer., mispronunciation of carte des vins.(notes)

** ('Of course, I know that for your patients to have bad dreams is a zhidovskaya prerogativa'), Dorothy’s words to “dream-analyst” Van (3,8).

#-AdaOnline:  116.04-05: jumping into the last furniture van: Cf. 121.32: “jumped out of a pumpkin-hued police van.”  See also:

MOTIF: Cinderella; fairy-tale; slipper.