Tiresome
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I read Lolita and, of course, it's great. So I had high hopes. But this is just too much like hard work for small change. Lolita is full of tricky word-play, delightful linguistic flourishes, but it's also an incredibly good read. This is just too pleased with its own minutiae, with its own ceaselessly dense detail and frippery and cleverness. It's boring. It's a turnoff. I've heard it compared to Joyce but I don't think this is fair on Joyce. When you look at a novel like Ulysses, what is most resonant, what is most obvious, is that Joyce's overriding intent, his major concern, is not to spin zinc-bright witty prose with acrobatic dexterity. His main purpose is to present, sympathetically, faithfully, compassionately, the people who populate his story. The delightful prose he uses to do this is only a part of the pleasure. Ada or Ardor, to my mind, has no intent beyond that of a dazzling writer determined to dazzle. And dazzle he does. And dazzle. And dazzle. Until you're blind with it.
Obviously, this depends entirely on the person and no one can really say with any authority, but I just didn't get the impression that Nabokov was compelled to write this by anything other than an over-inflated, runaway sense of his own sparkling brilliance. It's just boring. Self-indulgence to the point of onanism.
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Of Space and Time
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The key to understanding this novel and it's inevitable enjoyment is revealed by Nabokov's insight into the illusory nature of time and space. The story is set in a fantastical Eden like world of aristocratic privilege, incest, botanical and zoological manifestations and subverted morality. The essence of this historical memoir is seen through the recollections of Van and his one and only 'true' love Ada. Their memories are relics of a distant past (spanning ninety years), contorted by their childhood passion, shaped and manipulated by subsequent events, and deformed by the nature of time itself. The present, or 'nowness' being the only tangible impression that can ever have any meaning for conscious thought. Indeed it is this aspect of the novel that controls the parallel universe in which the story unfolds. Memories that are dependent on the recollections of the moment and not based on an exact sequence of past events. These events are to be seen as shadows of human existance, lengthening and shortening over time, nourishing thought with emotional intensities and altering perceptions of the past. Through this vista Nabokov offers a lush insight into the nature of love and decay.
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Overrated
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Call me a philistine or a dilettante but I found this book tiresome to read due to the overabundance of self-indulgent and irritating "wordplay", especially the gratuitous and facile "puns". Big deal! As my French is practically non-existent I had to frequently consult Nabokov`s translations in his notes at the back of the book, which was really very offputting. I`m surprised that I finished the book, to be honest.
Life is too short to have to go to so much trouble just to get through a novel.
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In a class of its own. Awe-inspiring prose.
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To write a review of Ada is almost impossible except to say that it is the book in which Nabokov, the greatest prose stylist in English, uses his mastery of the language and his great knowledge of European literary history to his greatest extent and evidently enjoys himself! The whole book is choc-a-bloc with word-play, literary puzzles, allusions to other works, hidden quotations, alliteration, streams of consciousness, history, science fiction, dollops of French, helpings of Russian, laces of Latin, poetry, catalogues of erotica, and many many other things..this is a literature lover's delight but requires great concentration; however, even more so than Lolita, the dedicated reader will be delighted and rewarded like he or she has never been before. This is Nabokov at his literary peak. Rarely can any writer of English have written prose of this calibre. Awe-inspiring is the only word I can think of to describe it. The plot, as it is, deals with the love story between Ada and Van Veen who happen to be first cousins from their first meeting as young teenagers to their old age and eventual death and is set in a parallel world to Earth called Antiterra which is similar to--yet different in some geographical and historical aspects-- to our own Earth (or Terra)... It is quite a long book too (500 odd pages of dense text) but eminently worth the effort and time. The only problem is once you have read Nabokov, and especially Ada, no other novel gives as much pleasure afterwards so every other fictional book afterwards pales in comparison (so far...)! I would give my left arm to be able to write prose like this!
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"Ada","Ardor"....'Ad enough!
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Having read all of his other novels and short stories, this is where I lost interest. As another reviewer mentions, V.N considered this his finest. There is a Nabokov website that includes readers' responses. Curiously enough, this one scored low, along with "The Gift". The latter I took on a vacation to Hokkaido in 1998 (a pretty boring place, so take a big book, if you don't like "the great outdoors"!) Big mistake, as I simply wasn't moved in the least by it. I find it odd that V.N dismisses novels such as "Laughter In The Dark"(an excellent book), while trumpeting this one (or did he rate "Lolita" highest?). I find it really self-indulgent, sprawling and pointless. But it doesn't matter, as I enjoy re-reading many of his other masterpieces.
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