Two Good Reasons

[David Morris]

Chocolate and Vanilla, I guess.

On the surface Ada is a memoir written by a man in his old age recounting his
life-long incestuous love affair with his half-sister.  Both are extremely rich
and extremely intelligent and extremely haughty, because they are nearly
super-human (I guess that's why they love each other).  That's where my take on
its soulessness begins.  Unless one is interested in a "lifestyles of the rich
and famous" story, the memoir fails to elicit any feeling.  It is full of
beautifully crafted word play, which is fine, but not enough to sustain the
story.

All through the book I kept asking myself when the "real" story would be
revealed (because the surface one was of marginaal interest), and there are a
few hints at clues to an alternate reading/world.  As I suspected when I began
the book, I now believe it is intended to be the self-dellusional writings of a
mad-man.  The world he inhabits, Antiterra, is a dellusion, and the world which
is supposed to be a religious fantasy, Terra, is the place we inhabits and from
which he flees.  I've had correspondence with someone on the Nabokov list who
agrees that if the surface story is all there is to Ada, then the book isn't
worth the trouble to read.  But that person is convinced there are deeper
levels, following something along the lines of what I've proposed.  I'm just
not motivated to dig deeper.

David Morris


--- s~Z <keithsz at concentric.net> wrote:
> >>>I found Ada a souless book.<<<
> 
> I found ADA a work of exquisitely crafted beauty. It moved me as much as any
> book I've read. I will read it again and again. For my tastes it leaves PALE
> FIRE in the dust. As for its length, I never wanted it to end. I began
> rereading it immediately and enjoyed the second reading more than the first.
> 


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