Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness

354 Pages·2002·2.19 MB·English

by  Brian Boyd

NABOKOV’S ADA
Also by Brian Boyd
Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years
Nabokov’s Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery
Presents of the Past: Literature in English Before 1900
Edited by Brian Boyd:
Nabokov: Novels and Memoirs, 1941-1951:
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
Bend Sinister
Speak, Memory
Nabokov: Novels 1955-1962:
Lolita
Lolita: A Screenplay
Pnin
Pale Fire
Nabokov: Novels 1969-1974:
Ada
Transparent Things
Look at the Harlequins!
Nabokov’s Butterfl ies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (with Robert
Michael Pyle)
Brian Boyd
NABOKOV’S ADA:
The Place of Consciousness

Second Edition
Cybereditions
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Copyright © 2001 Brian Boyd
The moral right of the author is asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted and protected
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Other than for personal use, no part of it may be reproduced,
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ISBN 1-877275-28-X
The fi rst edition of this book was published by
Ardis Publishers in 1985
…to try to express one’s position in regard
to the universe embraced by consciousness, is
an immemorial urge.
Nabokov, Speak, Memory
...the main favor I ask of the serious critic
is suffi cient perceptiveness to understand that
whatever term or trope I use, my purpose is
not to be facetiously fl ashy or grotesquely ob-
scure but to express what I feel and think with
the utmost truthfulness and perception.
Nabokov, Strong Opinions

Contents
Abbreviations 8
A Note on Ada Editions 9
Preface to First Edition 11
Preface to Second Edition 13
Part One: Nabokov and the Reader
1 Introduction 19
2 Independence and Pattern 29
3 Resistance and Solution 50
Part Two: Nabokov and the World
4 Space, Time and Consciousness 67
5 Beyond Consciousness 85
Part Three: Ada: The Responsibilities of Consciousness
6 Introduction 111
7 Lucette 113
8 Inseparable Fates 129
9 Lucette and Others (1) 145
10 Lucette and Others (2) 159
Part Four: Ada: The Metaphysics of Consciousness
11 The Mysteries of Time 187
12 In Time and Beyond 202
13 Conclusion 220
Appendix: Spectral Hypotheses 237
Part Five: Ada: Epilogue and Introduction
14 Ada through the Attic 257
15 The Art and the Ardor of Ada 281
16 Ada, or Amplitude 288
17 Ada’s Allure 303
Appendix: “Mémoire,” by Arthur Rimbaud 317
Notes 322
Index of Passages in Ada 339
General Index 341
Abbreviations
All works by Vladimir Nabokov unless otherwise stated.
Ada Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1969, and London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969, 589 pp.
BS Bend Sinister. 1947; New York: Time, Inc., 1964.
Darkbloom “Notes to Ada by Vivian Darkbloom,” in Ada or Ardor: A Family
Chronicle, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1970.
Gift The Gift. Trans. Michael Scammell with Vladimir Nabokov.
New York: Putnam’s, 1963.
Lolita Lolita. 1955; New York: Putnam’s, 1958.
LATH Look at the Harlequins! New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974
Mason Bobbie Ann Mason. Nabokov’s Garden: A Guide to Ada. Ann
Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1974.
NG Nikolai Gogol. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1944.
PF Pale Fire. New York: Putnam’s, 1962.
PP Poems and Problems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.
Proffer Carl R. Proffer. “Ada as Wonderland: A Glossary of Allusions to
Russian Literature.” In A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov,
ed. Carl R. Proffer. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1974.
RB A Russian Beauty and Other Stories. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1973.
RLSK The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Norfolk, Conn.: New Direc-
tions, 1941.
SM Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. New York: Putnam’s,
1966.
SO Strong Opinions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.
TD Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1975.
TT Transparent Things. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972.
VNAY Brian Boyd. Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Princeton
University Press, 1991.
VNRY Brian Boyd. Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years. Princeton
University Press, 1990.
A Note on Ada Editions
For a detailed account of the sources, genesis, composition and publication of
Ada, see VNRY and especially VNAY, 487–535. For the bare outlines of the
novel’s composition, see the start of Chapter 17 below.
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle was fi rst published in May 1969 by Mc-
Graw-Hill in New York, in an edition of 589 pages, and was reprinted four
times in hardback. The fi rst English edition, set from the same plates, was
published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in October 1969, but introduced some
textual changes, such as the correct “descried from marble steps” (instead
of “described from marble steps”) in the last sentence of the novel, and the
incorrect correction “she was pregnant” (instead of “he was pregnant”) in the
last sentence of Part 1, and printed Van’s closing blurb as dust-jacket copy. A
1969 McGraw-Hill book club edition reset the text in 626 pages, introducing
many careless new errors.
Since Ada was being rushed into print in an Italian translation in No-
vember 1969, Nabokov had marked in the margins of his own copy of the
McGraw-Hill fi rst edition phrases that he thought could cause translators to
trip. In 1970 in the Commonwealth outside Britain, and in 1971 in Britain
itself, he polished these glosses for publication in the fi rst English paperback
edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin), entitling them “‘Notes to Ada’ by Vivian
Darkbloom.” Confronted with a gaudily “trendy” cover design for the fi rst
American paperback edition (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1970), Nabokov
offered Penguin his own colored-pencil drawing of the orchid Cattleya labiata,
which became the basis for the Penguin front cover, while the rear cover
printed most of Van’s blurb. The “Notes to Ada” were reprinted in the US
for the fi rst time, and were themselves annotated, by J.E. Rivers and William
Walker, in J.E. Rivers and Charles Nicol, ed., Nabokov’s Fifth Arc (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1982).
In 1973 and 1974 Nabokov and his wife, Véra, worked briefl y with German
translators Uwe Friesel and Marianne Therstappen, who translated the novel as
Ada oder, Das Verlangen (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1974). He then spent
six months in 1974–1975 correcting the translation of Ada, ou l’Ardeur, begun
by Gilles Chahine and taken over by Jean-Bertrand Blandenier (Paris: Fayard,
1975), altering allusions and puns as he saw the need and opportunity.
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