Ada two

Having bought this book (reference 1) while on holiday in the Isle of Wight (reference 2), it has taken me just about two months to get through the 600 odd pages. My first ever go with Nabokov. At the very least, the first go for a very long time.

I think I had been prompted by something in the NYRB take a look at Nabokov, a novelist which one or both of my parents got around to, but which I have never engaged with. Perhaps I read – or skipped through – Lolita at some point. Prompted particularly to take a look at Pnin. Epsom Library failed, as did Waterstones, but while the Goose bookshop at St. Helens could not do Pnin it could do Ada – a book club edition of 1969, described by the bookshop as a first edition. Fairly cheap printing, but a substantial, decently bound hardback with the pages cut, in the US way, to fake pages cut with a paper knife. At least that is what I thought, but I know now that the pages have been cut to fake the unfinished edges of paper made in a deckle, a process which became obsolete in the first part of the nineteenth century. Faking survived to make a book look expensive, arty or both. Bard was a bit wobbly on the detail, but at least he supplied the name, which had not got beyond the tip of my tongue and Wikipedia did the rest at reference 3.

The 600 pages are arranged in five parts, with the first part running to 350 pages and with the last four getting successively shorter, with the fifth part a modest 20 pages. The chronicle of the life-long, stop-start love affair between a brother and a girl who turns out to be his sister, from a family which is clearly awash with money. There is also a role for the younger sister of the sister, who ends up committing suicide by diving off a liner in mid-Atlantic. The novel ends with brother and sister spending their last twenty years or so together, by which time he is more or less past it.

A novel which got a mixed reception when it first came out, but is now a national treasure. A sort of cross between Proust, Joyce and Kafka. Supported by a small Nabokov industry, a small-scale version of those run by the Proustophiles and the Joyceophiliacs.

Nabokov is clearly very interested in words and has lots of fun with them – with one catch being that a fair chunk of this fun depends on knowing Russian, which I do not. He also seems to be something of a naturalist, particularly interested in flashy flowers and the insects which feed off them. Also trees, with liriodendrons getting a couple of mentions and the coastal redwoods one. No Wellingtonias though.

In fact, he seems to be interested in all kinds of things, and to be happy to share.

In particular, he is very interested in sex, with what struck me as an unhealthy interest in sex involving people under the age of 16 (or perhaps 18) – to the point that I started to worry about whether the book was legal. Bard was a bit sniffy, preferring not to get involved, but various government websites seem to agree that child pornography is only an offence in the case that it takes the form of pictures. Pornographic words yes, pornographic images no. A rule which at least has the merit of being relatively easy to rule on. While I found a lot of the words both unsettling and tedious.

Furthermore, while the book seemed to be awash with talent and fun, I did not understand what was going on a lot of the time, or indeed, a lot of what he was saying. I would have been completely lost had he not thought to provide a family tree at the beginning. A pity it did not pull out, in the way of maps in proper history books in the olden days, so that you could consult them as you read.

I think the next step will be to take a look at some the outputs of the aforementioned industry and then to have another go at the book. Now that I know what happens, it will be easier to take my time.

PS 1: maybe the snap above, turned up by Google, was not the book club edition. For Rechler see reference 4: another chap with all  kinds of interests.

PS 2: the only other mention in the archive is at reference 5. Nabokov the champion butterfly fancier. Bing turns up lots of stuff.

References

Reference 1: Ada, or Ardor: a family chronicle – Vladimir Nabokov – 1969. 

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/to-woods.html. Notice of purchase on 20230719.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deckle_edge. 

Reference 4: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/roger-rechler-obituary?id=32497139.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/12/festive-nibbles.html.