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A review by aleffert
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
4.0
This is a trashy novel about the sex lives of idle aristocrats. However, it is by Nabokov and so it is an exquisite trashy novel about the sex lives of idle aristocrats. The prose is beautiful. The word play is delightful. The characters, sadly, are sort of tedious. The narrator, of course, is unreliable.
This book is weird. It is set in an alternate history earth whose geopolitics seem specifically set up so that the characters can make lots of triple language puns that cross Russian, French, and German and go right over my head. For some reason electricity has been banned. Somehow there is a water powered telephone. This alternate history setting also gives Nabokov an excuse to make clever jokes about actual historical figures: e.g. the four term ruler of America named Gamaliel. The main plot of the book is about an incestuous relationship between a brother and sister who thought they were cousins and much of the first segment of the book is concerned with them having extremely underage sex. So yeah, a weird book, not as good as Lolita or Pale Fire, but there are moments of obvious brilliance.
This book is weird. It is set in an alternate history earth whose geopolitics seem specifically set up so that the characters can make lots of triple language puns that cross Russian, French, and German and go right over my head. For some reason electricity has been banned. Somehow there is a water powered telephone. This alternate history setting also gives Nabokov an excuse to make clever jokes about actual historical figures: e.g. the four term ruler of America named Gamaliel. The main plot of the book is about an incestuous relationship between a brother and sister who thought they were cousins and much of the first segment of the book is concerned with them having extremely underage sex. So yeah, a weird book, not as good as Lolita or Pale Fire, but there are moments of obvious brilliance.