"Does it bother anyone else that Ada, so carefree
with her favors, chooses (after her first Swiss reunion with Van) to return
to Arizona with her ailing Andrey until his death 17 YEARS later? This
strikes me as inconsistent with her character as displayed everywhere else in
the novel." ------------------------------- BRIAN BOYD
<b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz> responds:
There are several kinds of
answer:
1. Nabokov of course needs the long separation of Van and Ada for
the rhythm of apparently collapsing time central to the structure of
the novel, and it must be conceded that that is a stronger motive than
Ada's compassion for Andrey. Still, it seems unlikely that with his usual
care in construction Nabokov would not have seen the need to motivate such
a key part of the novel's shape.
2. In fact Ada is consistently shown
as having a tender-heartedness as well as her hard dismissiveness and
arrogance. Remember that she responds to droopy Philip Rack and responds
again to far-from-droopy Percy de Prey, because he faces the danger of war
(and indeed dies soon after she sees him off).
3. Remember also that
the description of Andrey that we encounter, like the account of the feelings
Ada has for him, come entirely from Van, not known for his objectivity or
tolerant forbearance in such matters. He sees Ada's decision only as an
incomprehensible waste of (his) time; he never seems to want to know how Ada
sees it. In fact despite their uncanny relatedness, in various senses, and
the intensity and duration of their passion, there are curious gaps in Van's
and Ada's knowledge of each other.
Brian
Boyd
Some questions for
discussion:
1) Why 17 years (and not 15 or 20)?
2) Where is the
evidence that Ada is soft-hearted ? She is sexually responsive -- not
exactly the same thing.
3) Perhaps Ada was in prison? (She is guilty of
several crimes, that hard-hearted Ada, vamp of the savannah).
3a)
Is it just coincidence that Ada's lovers with one exception are "dead, all
dead"?
4) Does Dorothy play any role in this 17 year gap?