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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Quante parentesi vuoi nel libro?
Nabokov: Si.
E va bene. Nabokov era un genio. Devo premetterlo perché altrimenti mi viene detto che non capisco quello che leggo (che è pure vero). Però per fortuna il libro l’ho preso in prestito dalla biblioteca (c’ho messo solo 34 anni a fare la tessera) quindi non c'ho nemmeno speso soldi (li sarei davvero morta per autocumbustione). È che sono troppo stupida per Nabokov ma mi sono comunque sforzata di andare avanti perché sapevo che se avessi smesso di leggerlo non lo avrei più ripreso (e quanto avrei voluto lanciarlo contro il muro...). Nel limite datomi dalla mia stupidità sono comunque riuscita a capire bene o male cosa volesse dirmi Nabokov con questo trip di lsd ma non mi è piaciuto come lo ha fatto. Se la lettura deve diventare uno sforzarsi e ogni volta che prendi in mano un libro devi fare un gran respiro qualcosa non va e la vita è troppo breve, il tempo libero a disposizione troppo poco e il mondo troppo pieno di libri da leggere per soffermarsi troppo su qualcosa che evidentemente non doveva funzionare.
Nabokov: Si.
E va bene. Nabokov era un genio. Devo premetterlo perché altrimenti mi viene detto che non capisco quello che leggo (che è pure vero). Però per fortuna il libro l’ho preso in prestito dalla biblioteca (c’ho messo solo 34 anni a fare la tessera) quindi non c'ho nemmeno speso soldi (li sarei davvero morta per autocumbustione). È che sono troppo stupida per Nabokov ma mi sono comunque sforzata di andare avanti perché sapevo che se avessi smesso di leggerlo non lo avrei più ripreso (e quanto avrei voluto lanciarlo contro il muro...). Nel limite datomi dalla mia stupidità sono comunque riuscita a capire bene o male cosa volesse dirmi Nabokov con questo trip di lsd ma non mi è piaciuto come lo ha fatto. Se la lettura deve diventare uno sforzarsi e ogni volta che prendi in mano un libro devi fare un gran respiro qualcosa non va e la vita è troppo breve, il tempo libero a disposizione troppo poco e il mondo troppo pieno di libri da leggere per soffermarsi troppo su qualcosa che evidentemente non doveva funzionare.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“Stay with me, girl," said Van, forgetting everything—pride, rage, the convention of everyday pity.
"I can't, I can't, I'll write you,' murmured my poor love in tears.”
I went into this book knowing two things.
1. It’s about an incestuous relationship.
2. You have to have a “lover’s patience” to appreciate it.
That second point is spot on. The character of Van, who is the in-fiction writer of this book, really enjoys philosophical tangents. Still, the patience was worth it for all the ways this book excels. It’s first strength is the barrage of beautiful imagery. A few examples follow:
“He accompanied his black double down the accessory spiral stairs leading to the library.” (about his shadow)
“He rinsed his dentures orally with a mouthful of coffee prior to swallowing it and the flavorous flotsam. (Gross but vivid)
“The sweet cousin sported a shiny black raincoat and a down-brimmed oilcloth hat as if somebody was to be salvaged from the perils of life or sea. A tiny round patch did not quite hide a pimple on one side of her chin. Her breath smelled of ether. Her mood was even blacker than his.
“Had they lived together these seventeen wretched years, they would have been spared the shock and the humiliation; their aging would have been a gradual adjustment, as imperceptible as Time itself.
Another strength of the book is Ada herself, who could have easily become a one dimensional object of Van’s desire, but is instead written with humor and vibrancy. She loves butterflies and botany, she’s bisexual and brilliant. And her bisexuality is not something written for Van’s enjoyment, but for hers. I often find myself put off by female characters written by men, but Ada is not an example of that.
“qu 'y puis-je? (What can I do?) Oh dear, don't ask me, there's a girl in my school who is in love with me,“
“What had she actually done with the poor worms, after Krolik's untimely end? "Oh, set them free" (big vague gesture), "turned them out, put them back onto suitable plants, buried them in the pupal state, told them to run along, while the birds were not looking- or alas, feigning not to be looking.” (This book is so playful, I love it. I love Ada Veen)
”And now,” said Ada, "Van is going to stop being vulgar—I mean, stop forever! Because I had and have and shall always have only one beau, only one beast, only one sorrow, only one joy.”
What adds even more depth is the playfulness the book takes with language. Nabokov achieves this in two main ways. First, in the use of codes, there’s an entire chapter devoted to decoding Van and Ada’s letters. The second way that Nabokov plays with language is in the consistent switching from English, to Russian, to French, to really, any language he pleases. This created a lovely sense of anticipation at times, when I had to stop and translate to learn what had just been said.
”Secondes pensées sont les bonnes” = Second thoughts are the good ones
”Partir c'est mourir un peu, et mourir c'est partir un peu trop.” = To leave is to die a little, and to die is to leave a
little too.
Ada and Van also both like to throw in editors notes in parenthesis. It makes the book read like a marked up manuscript at times, and brings a lot of joy to the story.
“Ada, doing her feminine best to restrain and divert her sobs by transforming them into emotional exclamations, pointed out some accursed insect that had settled on an aspen trunk. (Accursed? Accursed? It was the newly described, fantastically
rare vanessian, Nymphalis danaus.)”
(An example of the editors notes that really showcases a bit of Ada’s personality. I loved reading her notes since most of the story is told from Van’s perspective of events, and Ada loves to correct him.)
We can know the time, we can know a time. We can never know Time. Our senses are simply not meant to perceive it.
”When our lovers (you like the authorial possessive, don't you, Van?)”
(More lovely Ada. I’d like to read a book from her perspective.)
Finally, I want to end with a collection of quotes from across Van’s various philosophical musings. While they can drag on a bit (especially the strange tangents about alternative worlds) some of them are actually quite delightful to read.
”To be" means to know one "has been." “Not to be" implies the only "new" kind of (sham) time: the future.
”Thus, in a quite literal sense, we may say that conscious human life lasts always only one moment, for at any moment of deliberate attention to our own flow of consciousness we cannot know if that moment will be followed by another.”
”Nothing happened-or perhaps everything happened, and his destiny simply forked at that instant, as it probably does sometimes at night, especially in a strange bed, at stages of great happiness or great desolation, when we happen to die in our sleep, but continue our normal existence, with no perceptible break…”
”The awfulness of the situation is an abyss that grows deeper the more I think of it.”
”Each hoped to go first, so as to concede, by implication, a longer life to the other, and each wished to go last, in order to spare the other the anguish, or worries, of widowhood.”
"I can't, I can't, I'll write you,' murmured my poor love in tears.”
I went into this book knowing two things.
1. It’s about an incestuous relationship.
2. You have to have a “lover’s patience” to appreciate it.
That second point is spot on. The character of Van, who is the in-fiction writer of this book, really enjoys philosophical tangents. Still, the patience was worth it for all the ways this book excels. It’s first strength is the barrage of beautiful imagery. A few examples follow:
“He accompanied his black double down the accessory spiral stairs leading to the library.” (about his shadow)
“He rinsed his dentures orally with a mouthful of coffee prior to swallowing it and the flavorous flotsam. (Gross but vivid)
“The sweet cousin sported a shiny black raincoat and a down-brimmed oilcloth hat as if somebody was to be salvaged from the perils of life or sea. A tiny round patch did not quite hide a pimple on one side of her chin. Her breath smelled of ether. Her mood was even blacker than his.
“Had they lived together these seventeen wretched years, they would have been spared the shock and the humiliation; their aging would have been a gradual adjustment, as imperceptible as Time itself.
Another strength of the book is Ada herself, who could have easily become a one dimensional object of Van’s desire, but is instead written with humor and vibrancy. She loves butterflies and botany, she’s bisexual and brilliant. And her bisexuality is not something written for Van’s enjoyment, but for hers. I often find myself put off by female characters written by men, but Ada is not an example of that.
“qu 'y puis-je? (What can I do?) Oh dear, don't ask me, there's a girl in my school who is in love with me,“
“What had she actually done with the poor worms, after Krolik's untimely end? "Oh, set them free" (big vague gesture), "turned them out, put them back onto suitable plants, buried them in the pupal state, told them to run along, while the birds were not looking- or alas, feigning not to be looking.” (This book is so playful, I love it. I love Ada Veen)
”And now,” said Ada, "Van is going to stop being vulgar—I mean, stop forever! Because I had and have and shall always have only one beau, only one beast, only one sorrow, only one joy.”
What adds even more depth is the playfulness the book takes with language. Nabokov achieves this in two main ways. First, in the use of codes, there’s an entire chapter devoted to decoding Van and Ada’s letters. The second way that Nabokov plays with language is in the consistent switching from English, to Russian, to French, to really, any language he pleases. This created a lovely sense of anticipation at times, when I had to stop and translate to learn what had just been said.
”Secondes pensées sont les bonnes” = Second thoughts are the good ones
”Partir c'est mourir un peu, et mourir c'est partir un peu trop.” = To leave is to die a little, and to die is to leave a
little too.
Ada and Van also both like to throw in editors notes in parenthesis. It makes the book read like a marked up manuscript at times, and brings a lot of joy to the story.
“Ada, doing her feminine best to restrain and divert her sobs by transforming them into emotional exclamations, pointed out some accursed insect that had settled on an aspen trunk. (Accursed? Accursed? It was the newly described, fantastically
rare vanessian, Nymphalis danaus.)”
(An example of the editors notes that really showcases a bit of Ada’s personality. I loved reading her notes since most of the story is told from Van’s perspective of events, and Ada loves to correct him.)
We can know the time, we can know a time. We can never know Time. Our senses are simply not meant to perceive it.
”When our lovers (you like the authorial possessive, don't you, Van?)”
(More lovely Ada. I’d like to read a book from her perspective.)
Finally, I want to end with a collection of quotes from across Van’s various philosophical musings. While they can drag on a bit (especially the strange tangents about alternative worlds) some of them are actually quite delightful to read.
”To be" means to know one "has been." “Not to be" implies the only "new" kind of (sham) time: the future.
”Thus, in a quite literal sense, we may say that conscious human life lasts always only one moment, for at any moment of deliberate attention to our own flow of consciousness we cannot know if that moment will be followed by another.”
”Nothing happened-or perhaps everything happened, and his destiny simply forked at that instant, as it probably does sometimes at night, especially in a strange bed, at stages of great happiness or great desolation, when we happen to die in our sleep, but continue our normal existence, with no perceptible break…”
”The awfulness of the situation is an abyss that grows deeper the more I think of it.”
”Each hoped to go first, so as to concede, by implication, a longer life to the other, and each wished to go last, in order to spare the other the anguish, or worries, of widowhood.”
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest
Moderate: Pedophilia, Rape, Classism
⭐️⭐️⭐️ e mezzo.
Stile eccelso, così come la prima e la quinta parte.
Stile eccelso, così come la prima e la quinta parte.
I wish I could pun in three languages simultaneously. That is all.
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Jeg brugte det meste af min læsning i 2020 på at indhente, danne mig overblik over og gå i dybden med den nye danske litteratur, skrevet af unge forfattere. Og det var en fornøjelse! Det er skønt at vide, at litteraturens fremtid er i så kyndige hænder. Når det så er sagt, så savnede jeg at give mig i kast med en lang, krævende klassiker, så en sneglefartsagtig januar var det perfekte tidspunkt endelig at få læst Ada, or Ardor. Og den var vidunderlig. Det er en fornøjelse at læse noget, der fuldstændig ukompliceret og uden sved på panden lever op til sin klassikerstatus. Hver side synger med Nabokovs helt unikke øre for poesi og dekadence, bla bla bla, Gud hvor var den god. Jeg kan ikke vente med at genlæse den.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Imagine smut, but the reading level is set on hard difficulty.
Got very uncomfortable with the narrator’s descriptions of Ada. Not a point about intent, regardless of it I didn’t really want to continue reading.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Incest