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In 2003, Carolyn Kunin wrote the following regarding an allusion by
Nabokov to the famous historical Ada:
"...I have had the luck of finding in Nabokov's Ada a clear reference to
Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace:
"Ada was transformed into a sort of graceful computing machine, endowed,
moreover, with phenomenal luck, and would greatly surpass baffled Van in
acumen, foresight and exploitation of chance..."
Ada Lovelace made her enduring reputation by her ability to program and
understand Babbage's two computing machines, the "Analytical Engine" and
the "Difference Engine." To quote from Joan Baum's The Calculating
Passion
of Ada Byron (1986), "the actual program [was] a means to generate a
complicated sequence in the caluculus known as the Bernoulli numbers
..."
I still do not know how or in what context Nabokov would have known of
Ada
Lovelace. The Encylopedia Britannica (1960) says nothing of her
mathematical achievements and the recognition of her achievements was
not
generally known until 1980. Possibly a biography of Byron may have
discussed this, or perhaps Nabokov's 1960ish knowledge of mathematics
was
more sophisticated than has been supposed?"
To the above I would like to add the following tidbit, which adds
another
layer of the onion to the comments I've made during the past week to
what
I claim are Nabokov's disguised admiration for Jane Austen, his comments
to Edmund Wilson notwithstanding. It turns out that Annabella Milbanke,
the mother of that same historical Ada, was one of the very first
Janeites, as evidenced by the following comment in a letter written by
her
in 1813, shortly after Pride and Prejudice was published:
"I have finished the Novel called Pride and Prejudice, which I think a
very superior work. It depends not on any of the common resources of
novel
writers, no drownings, no conflagrations, nor runaway horses, nor
lap-dogs
and parrots, nor chambermaids and milliners, nor rencontres and
disguises.
I really think it is the _most probable_ fiction I have ever read..."
My speculation is that part of what interested Nabokov about the
historical Ada was the above Jane Austen connection, in particular
because
Ada's mother's praise is focussed on how "probable", i.e, realistic,
Austen's fiction is. The allusion to Ada by Nabokov refers to Ada's own
mathematical theorizing focused on "exploitation of chance".
I bet Milbanke (and Ada) loved Austen's _Northanger Abbey_, too, after
it
was published, with its explicit and exquisite satire on the subject of
the probable. NA in fact teems with sophisticated but covert satires on
many issues that were the subject of intellectual discussion among the
likes of Hume, Locke, Smith, et al--discussion which Austen herself
clearly had read, understood....and then critiqued in her veiled way.
And I bet Nabokov was aware of all of the above.
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com