Welcome to Litsy!

#AugustWrapUp
This month I set out to read fewer but longer books, so I'm happy with my 5 books, two of which were really long.

What a challenging book. It was difficult. Even with the footnotes, I suspect most of the literary references and language play just went by me. Some chapters were so dense I hardly understood what was going on.
It was also delightful. There were passages I found myself rereading again and again, they were so beautiful.
I understand why some readers might find it dull, but me, I just thought, who cares about the plot with prose like Nabokov's?

A wavering pick. Incest - romantic incest, insatiable incest. And an imaginative world that is parallel to ours but different…a little like Nabokov‘s privileged indulgent world might have been had the Soviet Revolution never happened. I liked it a whole lot, then I didn‘t and got bored with all the sex, and it kept going (for 600 pages). And I set it aside only to realize I missed it and really did like it. It‘s an oddly endearing parody.

Ok, is this entire book just about sex? Underage incestual sex. I‘m 250 pages in and that‘s been about the only theme. Dense prose in 2 1/2* languages (plus a code) full of literary references, but all about variations of sex.

*1/2 because of the scattered transliterated apparently Russian phrases, usually paired with presumably playful translations.

Started this today, a 1969 edition.

(Trying this again. I tried to delete a comment i was writing and deleted my post.)

I decided I didn‘t want to read another Nabokov book after I am still disturbed from reading Lolita like 15 years ago... maybe someday. I think my husband had this one before we were together and it‘s been on the shelf. I do like the cover, though... This book was my August #doublespin
@TheAromaofBooks

This book combines two of Nabokov‘s challenges: linguistic brilliance and sexual transgression. It adds a third: narrative meandering. Nonetheless, I found this so constantly full of clever wordplay—in English, French, and Russian—that I enjoyed the whole reading even if I wasn‘t gripped by the story. Caveat: it helps to have some level of Russian fluency.

"His love for Ada was a condition of being, a steady hum of happiness unlike anything he had met with professionally in the lives of the singular and the insane."

Finally finished Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle and it was worth the long read. Nabokov knows just how to captivate a person with his beautiful prose and hypnotic tale.

#RussianLit #VladimirNabokov

"Van sealed the letter, found his Thunderbolt pistol in the place he has visualized, introduced one cartridge into the magazine, and translated it into its chamber. Then, standing before a closet mirror, he put the automatic to his head, at the point of pterion, and pressed the comfortably concaved trigger. Nothing happened- or perhaps everything happened, and his destiny simply forked at the instant..."

#RussianLit #Nabokov #FicRec

Phew. Six hundred mostly mundane, "tricky" pages, but I am a champ for making it through this.

I'm (thankfully) nearing the end, but still haven't finished it. I really need to spend some time with this and knock it out of the way.

This, friends, might be the longest, most tedious book ever. I'm done with Nabokov after this.

It has taken me months but Ive finally finished Part 1 of this Russian-steampunk-absurdist-erotica! It really is an enjoyable book despite the extent of time it is taking me to read it. I went into it not knowing anything about the plot or structure, and let me tell this has been a trip. If youre interested in a long haul this is at the top of my recommendation pile!

#RussianLit #steampunk #erotica #VladimirNabokov

Nabokov's editor, probably: "Vlad, you can't write a book soaked with incest..."
Nabokov: "Hold my beer."
94/1,001 #1001Books

"Do you like your book?"

"yeah, it's pretty interesting"

"what's happening?"

"well, they've been playing scrabble for a while..."

#AdaOrArdor #vladimirnabokov #russianlit

So many boners

Hey here we go 2017 let us dance shall we

"If we want life's sundial to show its hand, we must always remember that the strength, the dignity, the delight of man is to spite and despise the shadows and stars that hide their secrets from us."

Eh. It seemed to drag on and and was rather dull in places. However, there are two things that Nabokov never fails to do: wrote beautifully poetic prose and make me increasingly uncomfortable. This wasn't as good as Lolita was, to me, but was good enough that I still respect him and his work highly.

One thing should be established once for all, indefensibly. I loved, love, and shall love only you. I implore you and love you with everlasting pain and passion, my darling. Tï tut stoyal (you stayed here), in this karavansaray, you in the middle of everything, always...

She hated him, she adored him. He was brutal, she was defenseless.

Because nothing had changed -- you are with me, aren't you?

"How happy, nature, how unhappy, man!"

She smiled, dreamily enjoying the thought (rather "Kareninian" in tone) that her extinction would affect people about as deeply as the abrupt, mysterious, never explained demise of a comic strip in a Sunday paper one had been taking for years.

Trying this instead, since Shogun was a bust. Nabokov is one of my favorites... Hopefully he doesn't let me down.