This premise is possibly the only aspect of Ada or Ardor common to numerous other novels. Van, fourteen, falls in love with his twelve-year-old cousin Ada during summer vacation. Revisiting Ada or Ardor might shed light on the reasons critics and readers snubbed what Nabokov intended as his masterpiece, and whether they should give the novel a (second) chance.Īda or Ardor is at its core a love story, the stuff that’s sold reams of pop music, and piles of books. Now that floods of scandals and broken taboos have run under the bridge, the hype has dissipated. When Ada, or Ardor came out, Lolita’s scandal and the frequent appearances of Nabokov in the media were the talk of the day. Perspective offers a measure of detachment, rather than objectivity which remains necessarily unattainable in the arts. But a lapse of fifty years is sufficient, as far as scholarly theory has it, for contemporaneity to turn into history. Investigating the lack of success of a novel, indeed of any artistic creation, is a risky business. The 50th anniversary of Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle has gone with little fanfare, as opposed to Nabokov’s 1955s succès de scandale, Lolita – its jubilee celebrated by many articles, and a commemorative edition. Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space–Map Projections: The Snail, 1978 Ink on rag paper with printed Myar overlay, 24 x 30 inches (Copyright Agnes Denes, Courtesy Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York)
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