I might take about forty years to finish my Annotations to ADA / AdaOnline, although I could have completed it in two or three years had I chosen to do it continuously. But I protest at Robert's comparison with Finnegans Wake. I wrote my first published article on Joyce, was considering a PhD on him—even one on the Wake—but have never managed to read more than a fraction of the book. I read Ada avidly at 17, and happened to leave the book down at the home of my sister--who never finished high school, had a shotgun marriage, already had two children, now runs a pub in a depressed area—while I goofed around with her kids. She read the first chapter—surely the densest part of Ada and of Nabokov’s oeuvre--and thought it “a scream.” The book is funny and accessible. Sure, it also includes riddles no one person will be able to master, but so does life, and we can enjoy both.

Brian Boyd 





On 21/01/2015, at 1:33 pm, Robert Boyle <allocapnia@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

VN dismissed Finnegans Wake as "one of the greatest failures in literature,'' yet he seems to have set the board with a similar scrambled word game in Ada.  Asked why he had written the Wake the way he did, Joyce replied, "To keep the critics busy for three hundred years."   How long do Nabokovians  expect to be busy with Ada?  

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 3:56 PM, Nabokv-L <nabokv-l@utk.edu> wrote:
Subject:     [NABOKV-L] RES: [NABOKV-L] Darwin in Ada
Date:     Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:55:06 +0000
From:     Fet, Victor <fet@marshall.edu>
To:     Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>

I am attempting to explore importance of Darwin in Ada and other VN writings (beyond Podvig/Glory).


I am not specifically interested in "Scrabble approach", but noticed that both Demon and Dan Veen have nicknames starting with R, and thus abbreviate to D. "R". Veen, or in Russian transliteration, D. R. Vin. (English "R" is read as "ar"). Note hard "v" with which we Russians customarily replace "w" in spoken English (e.g. I live in Vest Wirginia).


Their grandfather is Erasmus Veen, who is easily interpreted as Erasmus [Dar]vin.


I wonder if anybody noticed this word play before. I welcome any advice on the subject.


Van and Ada thus are not just "children of Demon" but also descendants of Darwin.

"Descent with modification" is Darwin's original formula of evolutionary change. Anybody would agree that, in the case of Van and Ada, such modification, compared to direct ancestors, is profound. It will not be inherited, I am afraid.


Victor Fet

Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en

Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L

Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L

Google Search
the archive		 Contact
the Editors		 NOJ Zembla Nabokv-L
Policies		 Subscription options AdaOnline NSJ Ada Annotations L-Soft Search the archive VN Bibliography Blog

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.


Google Search
the archive		 Contact
the Editors		 NOJ Zembla Nabokv-L
Policies		 Subscription options AdaOnline NSJ Ada Annotations L-Soft Search the archive VN Bibliography Blog

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.