Subject
ADA projects
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1.Some ambitious soul should undertake a map of ADA's Antiterra. It could lead into a series for each of the book's settings. A map for Chapter One alone would help innocent young readers find their footing in the novel's world. Consultation with Boyd's "Annotatations to ADA) in THE NABOKOVIAN would be essential.
2. Everybody knows that VN opens ADA by inverting the opening of Tolstoy's ANNA KARENINA: 'All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike,' says a great Russian writer in the beginning of a famous novel (Anna Arkadievitch Karenina, transfigured into English by R.G. Stonelower, Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880). That pronouncement has little if any relation to the story to be unfolded now, a family chronicle, the first part of which is, perhaps, closer to another Tolstoy work, Detstvo i Otrochestvo (Childhood and Fatherland, Pontius Press, 1858).
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Tolstoy's opening (happy = alike / unhappy = unalike) is apt since he is contrasting an unhappy family (A.K-Vronsky) and a happy family (Lev & Kitty). Nabokov's inversion is, to some extent, apropos for a family history set on ANTI-terra. But one wonders who the "happy family" may be. Certainly neither of the Durmanov-Veen marriages are happy. Nor is Van & Ada's until very late in the day.
Equally puzzling is VN's pronouncement that the formula "has little if any relation to the story to be unfolded." At least on the surface, the disclaimer seems to be true BUT Nabokov oftens covertly calls attention to important facts by dismissing them in advance. (See "The Vane Sisters" for blatant examples.) Ideas?
2. Everybody knows that VN opens ADA by inverting the opening of Tolstoy's ANNA KARENINA: 'All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike,' says a great Russian writer in the beginning of a famous novel (Anna Arkadievitch Karenina, transfigured into English by R.G. Stonelower, Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880). That pronouncement has little if any relation to the story to be unfolded now, a family chronicle, the first part of which is, perhaps, closer to another Tolstoy work, Detstvo i Otrochestvo (Childhood and Fatherland, Pontius Press, 1858).
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Tolstoy's opening (happy = alike / unhappy = unalike) is apt since he is contrasting an unhappy family (A.K-Vronsky) and a happy family (Lev & Kitty). Nabokov's inversion is, to some extent, apropos for a family history set on ANTI-terra. But one wonders who the "happy family" may be. Certainly neither of the Durmanov-Veen marriages are happy. Nor is Van & Ada's until very late in the day.
Equally puzzling is VN's pronouncement that the formula "has little if any relation to the story to be unfolded." At least on the surface, the disclaimer seems to be true BUT Nabokov oftens covertly calls attention to important facts by dismissing them in advance. (See "The Vane Sisters" for blatant examples.) Ideas?