Ada, or Ardor, Vladimir Nabokov
Ada, or Ardor, Vladimir Nabokov
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Ada, or Ardor
A Family Chronicle

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Narrator: Arthur Morey

Unabridged: 20 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/20/2011

Synopsis

Published two weeks after Vladimir Nabokov’s seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of his greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest, but it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue. Ada, or Ardor is no less than the supreme work of an imagination at white heat. This is the first American edition to include the extensive and ingeniously sardonic appendix by the author, written under the anagrammatic pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom. One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977. “Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.” —John Updike

About Vladimir Nabokov

One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vit on February 08, 2023

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is a fabulous and fanciful amorous dystopia. Right away, with his trial balloon: “All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike,” Vladimir Nabokov shows that his love story is a wicked and highly intellectual parody of every......more

Goodreads review by Ilse on May 21, 2024

She was soon ready, and they kissed tenderly in their hall way, between lift and stairs, before separating for a few minutes. “Tower”, she murmured in reply to his questioning glance, just as she used to do on those honeyed mornings in the past, when checking up on happiness. “And you?” “A regular z......more

Goodreads review by Karen on May 20, 2008

Oh man, what can I say about this book? Just that I could probably reread Ada, and only Ada, for the rest of my life and still feel satisfied. For the most part, I read this book the way I usually read the first time around - that is, superficially, just trying to make general sense of what's going......more

Goodreads review by Manny on November 23, 2010

Suppose things had worked out better for Humbert Humbert. Suppose he'd gone to jail for a while but hadn't had a heart attack there, and suppose Lolita hadn't died while still a teenager, giving birth to a stillborn child. Suppose instead that they'd both survived, had various sordid adventures, and......more

Goodreads review by nostalgebraist on September 25, 2015

I have trouble writing positive reviews. It's precisely when I love a book that I most strongly feel how little justice my words can do to the experience of reading it, which is how I end up writing reviews like this. Nonetheless, Ada deserves a review. I'm not a very widely read person, and I rarely......more

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