-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Ada and Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick
Date:	Sun, 07 Jan 2007 21:29:43 -0500
From:	Walter Miale <wm@greenworldcenter.org>
To:	Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
References:	<c00.c24ec19.32cf80c4@aol.com> <017201c730e1$dba3abe0$6601a8c0@jansyuww9tl3no>

A few years ago I posted a query here asking whether anyone had
written about or just noticed the similar motifs in Ada and Kurt
Vonnegut's Slapstick. I don't believe there were any replies, so I'll
try again.

In Slapstick, Vonnegut seems not so much to be writing a parody as
playing with some of the themes of Ada. Slapstick is a droll work of
whimsy and what appears to be improvised fantasy, but you find in it
all these familiar themes, starting with a pair of siblings who are
geniuses, "two of the happiest children the world has ever known."
Born into fabulous wealth, they enjoy an intimate and incestuous
relationship in an idyllic setting, where they are surrounded by
servants. They have discovered and pass much of their time in secret
passageways of a large mansion in the north country of a fantasy
planet (where gravity is of inconsistent and varying force). The
ecstatic happiness they enjoy together lasts only till they are 14,
sometime after which they are separated. The story is told by the
brother who looks back at their youth from the age of about 100 from
where he lives in the ruins of Manhattan, after the country was
depopulated by the Green Death.

The two books are far more different than alike. For starters, the
narrator's name is Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, and he becomes
President of the United States on a platform of "Lonesome no
more"...........

If anyone has any remarks on the common or parallel themes of the
books, or can refer me to an article on this, I'd be grateful.

Walter M.

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