/lit/ - Literature

yes

LITERATURE IS NOT FOR YOU.

>>22746456
Chapter 1 is the toughest, and it gradually gets easier for the entire length of the book. But you need to pay close attention and use a dictionary and a few annotations won't hurt either.
>sister incest kino
I'm not sure that you're going to get a lot of that out of it. It softens the incest in some suspiciously contrived ways (they didn't grow up together and also they're infertile and also almost nobody knows that they're siblings). Probably it's a distorted reflection of a more obscene reality but good luck putting the pieces together.
It does get pretty obscene regardless.

>>22746549
This could be based purely on the first page. Bad sign.

>le incest book!

>>22746608
Thank you for a serious response. I'll do my best to keep reading.

>>22746619
We are here to discuss literature, not share le epic 4troon moments, you dumb black ape nigger.

I planned on reading this but it turns out Nabokov has other books as well so I'll read them instead :)

>>22746608
I don't think Ada is incest kino in the way that the average anon is looking for in terms of spanking it, but I disagree that it tries to soften the incest. The three people who matter know that Van and Ada are fucking. The sterility to me is thematic, with the entire aristocratic world they are in slowly collapsing in on itself through the course of the novel, the fact that Van and Ada literally shut out the whole world and retreat into each other without progeny is the whole system eating itself.

>>22746891
Imagine you're on a phpBB forum circa 2005 and you're debating the ethics of incest, as one does. The first argument to be pulled out is inbreeding, so somebody says well, what if they're infertile or gay? So people say that it's still important not to normalize it and the same guy goes well what if society doesn't know about it though. Probably at some point somebody says that it's unnatural on account of the Westermarck effect, or unhealthy because of power dynamics something something, and then the estranged sibling gimmick is introduced.
It has that feel to it. You could describe it in such a way that it sounds like a thought experiment. Lolita is comparatively grounded, kind of prototypical, but the average case of sibling incest is nothing like Ada.
The infertility serves other purposes too, including your thematic one, but I can't shake the feeling that something's up.

>>22746456
I like Nabokov most of the time but I've tried to read this a few times and can't get through it. any tips? Is the Ada Online website a good source?
I didn't pick up on any of this:
>>22746608
>>22746891
>The sterility to me is thematic, with the entire aristocratic world they are in slowly collapsing in on itself through the course of the novel, the fact that Van and Ada literally shut out the whole world and retreat into each other without progeny is the whole system eating itself.

>>22747233
Ada Online and Boyd's book that is a collection of essays on Ada are both good, but probably not on a first read. What I'd say is just read it at a relaxed pace and then go back and think about it critically, it's a surprisingly relaxing novel when you let go of trying to get ahold of it.