Subject
QUERY & Answer re "Notes to Ada"
Date
Body
See EDITOR's NOTE at bottom.
----------------
From Jake Pultorak.
Have Dr. Boyd's stupendous notes to Ada, featured in the Nabokovian,
ever been published separately as a distinct volume? I have seen Boyd's
_Ada: The Place of Consciousness_ on amazon.com, but the description
does not indicate if that work (furthermore out of print) includes or
predates the notes to Ada. It does note that Boyd has a forthcoming
work on Pale Fire, but no mention of the Ada notes as a work unto
itself.
I would very much like to obtain these in their entirety, without having
to resort to back issues of the Nabokovian and hours at the
photocopier-- not to mention that they deserve their own place on the
shelf next to thick, black Ada herself.
Thanks,
Jake
--
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Jacob E. Pultorak
Practice Manager
Utilities Vertical
(617) 510-2361
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
EDITOR's NOTE. Jake Pultorak <jpultora@us.oracle.com> raises a good
question. Brian Boyd's detailed and essential "Notes on ADA" have been
running in THE NABOKOVIAN for some years and are now on Chapter 13 of Part
I. As Editor Steve Parker and Brian Boyd have both wryly noted, it will,
at the present rate of publication, be well into the next century before
the series is complete. Partly, this is a matter of the time it takes Boyd
to polish and recheck old information for each chapter, and partly the
available space to print them. The notes originally derive from Boyd's
dissertation research (and work since) and some of the information can be
found in the dissertation and in the much shrunken version of it published
by Ardis in 1985 (Ada: The Place of Consciousness). There is, at the
moment, no plan to gather and publish the "Notes" -- although it would be
a blessing for all of us. The major stumbling block is, I gather, that
Boyd is, as the saying goes, "overcommitted." For the moment, we shall
have to live with Boyd's "minialist" notes to the Library of America
edition -- a constraint imposed by the cost-conscious publisher. There
are also notes to the Russian translation of ADA issued by Symposium in
St. Petersburg as there will be for Dieter Zimmer's Rowohlt edition of
ADA and Maurice Couturier's Pleiade edition.
As a personal note, I add that I am more aware than most of the
inconvenience of not having Brian's full notes available. More than once I
have delved long and deep into an allusion in ADA and found a nugget --
only to belatedly learn that Brian had already come and gone with the
gold. (I confess I enjoyed the digging anyway.) On the bright side I can
point out that the absence of Brian's commentaries for the parts of ADA to
the right of I-13, gives other scholars the chance to publish first.
----------------
From Jake Pultorak.
Have Dr. Boyd's stupendous notes to Ada, featured in the Nabokovian,
ever been published separately as a distinct volume? I have seen Boyd's
_Ada: The Place of Consciousness_ on amazon.com, but the description
does not indicate if that work (furthermore out of print) includes or
predates the notes to Ada. It does note that Boyd has a forthcoming
work on Pale Fire, but no mention of the Ada notes as a work unto
itself.
I would very much like to obtain these in their entirety, without having
to resort to back issues of the Nabokovian and hours at the
photocopier-- not to mention that they deserve their own place on the
shelf next to thick, black Ada herself.
Thanks,
Jake
--
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Jacob E. Pultorak
Practice Manager
Utilities Vertical
(617) 510-2361
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
EDITOR's NOTE. Jake Pultorak <jpultora@us.oracle.com> raises a good
question. Brian Boyd's detailed and essential "Notes on ADA" have been
running in THE NABOKOVIAN for some years and are now on Chapter 13 of Part
I. As Editor Steve Parker and Brian Boyd have both wryly noted, it will,
at the present rate of publication, be well into the next century before
the series is complete. Partly, this is a matter of the time it takes Boyd
to polish and recheck old information for each chapter, and partly the
available space to print them. The notes originally derive from Boyd's
dissertation research (and work since) and some of the information can be
found in the dissertation and in the much shrunken version of it published
by Ardis in 1985 (Ada: The Place of Consciousness). There is, at the
moment, no plan to gather and publish the "Notes" -- although it would be
a blessing for all of us. The major stumbling block is, I gather, that
Boyd is, as the saying goes, "overcommitted." For the moment, we shall
have to live with Boyd's "minialist" notes to the Library of America
edition -- a constraint imposed by the cost-conscious publisher. There
are also notes to the Russian translation of ADA issued by Symposium in
St. Petersburg as there will be for Dieter Zimmer's Rowohlt edition of
ADA and Maurice Couturier's Pleiade edition.
As a personal note, I add that I am more aware than most of the
inconvenience of not having Brian's full notes available. More than once I
have delved long and deep into an allusion in ADA and found a nugget --
only to belatedly learn that Brian had already come and gone with the
gold. (I confess I enjoyed the digging anyway.) On the bright side I can
point out that the absence of Brian's commentaries for the parts of ADA to
the right of I-13, gives other scholars the chance to publish first.