http://conversationalreading.com/nabokovs-most-difficult-book/ Since 2004. The blog of the critic, writer, and editor, Scott Esposito Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:34:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://conversationalreading.com/nabokovs-most-difficult-book/#comment-3962 Scott Esposito Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:43:59 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=6964#comment-3962 It's not quite Lolita, but there is a lot of sex, much of it incest sex. It’s not quite Lolita, but there is a lot of sex, much of it incest sex.

]]> http://conversationalreading.com/nabokovs-most-difficult-book/#comment-3961 Jeff Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:41:34 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=6964#comment-3961 Earlier in the week I walked by a used bookstore here in Buenos Aires & saw an old, mass market paperback edition of Ada. The cover was hilarious. It said not "A Family Chronicle", but "The New Bestselling 'Erotic Masterpiece' by the author of Lolita". Earlier in the week I walked by a used bookstore here in Buenos Aires & saw an old, mass market paperback edition of Ada. The cover was hilarious. It said not “A Family Chronicle”, but “The New Bestselling ‘Erotic Masterpiece’ by the author of Lolita”.

]]> http://conversationalreading.com/nabokovs-most-difficult-book/#comment-3960 David M Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:46:00 +0000 http://conversationalreading.com/?p=6964#comment-3960 I think that with Ada Nabokov constructed a puzzle similar to that of Pale Fire. But I think with Ada he was too clever by half in that no one has come close to cracking the heart of this puzzle. The surface story of the incestuous aristocratic lovers, Ada and Van, is only mildly interesting, and the same is true of the surface description of the world of Antiterra (although I know some think this love storey beautiful all by itself). There is no depth in either of these facets of this novel. Do we readers really care about the concerns of a couple of self-absorbed rich uber kinder? The Terrors of Terra hold some clue to unravelling who is crazy and who is not, because the whole reality of Antiterra resmbles the escapist-world of some skitzophenic. I think that with Ada Nabokov constructed a puzzle similar to that of Pale Fire. But I think with Ada he was too clever by half in that no one has come close to cracking the heart of this puzzle. The surface story of the incestuous aristocratic lovers, Ada and Van, is only mildly interesting, and the same is true of the surface description of the world of Antiterra (although I know some think this love storey beautiful all by itself). There is no depth in either of these facets of this novel. Do we readers really care about the concerns of a couple of self-absorbed rich uber kinder? The Terrors of Terra hold some clue to unravelling who is crazy and who is not, because the whole reality of Antiterra resmbles the escapist-world of some skitzophenic.

]]>