ada sau ardoarea - vladimir nabokov

"I, Van Veen, salute you, life"

"At Cornell University, Vladimir Nabokov would always begin his first lecture by saying, "Great novels are above all great fairy tales . . . literature does not tell the truth but makes it up." "Ada," Nabokov's 15th novel, is a great fairy tale, a supremely original work of the imagination. Appearing two weeks after his 70th birthday, it provides further evidence that he is a peer of Kafka, Proust and Joyce, those earlier masters of totally unique universes of fiction.

"Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle" (its full title) spans 100 years. It is a love story, an erotic masterpiece, a philosophical investigation into the nature of time. Almost twice as long as any previous Nabokov novel, its rich and variegated prose moves from the darkest to the lightest of sonorities as Nabokov sensually evokes the widest range of delights. Nabokov the lepidopterist once said that he was "born a landscape painter," and he has never "painted" more luminous landscapes than in "Ada." It is an extraordinarily visual book, teeming with allusions to painters and paintings, and many scenes are veritable tableaux vivants of works ranging from Beardsley's illustrations for "Lysistrata" to the idyllic landscapes of Monet and Prendergast. As the family chronicle to end all such chronicles, "Ada" is a kind of
museum of the novel, and it employs parody to rehearse its own history."