Volume 12, Number 10 · May 22, 1969
Happy Families
By Matthew Hodgart
ADA or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
by Vladimir Nabokov
McGraw-Hill, 589 pp., $8.95
'Ardis Hall—the Ardors and Arbors of Ardis—this is the leitmotiv rippling through Ada, an ample and delightful chronicle, whose principal part is staged in a dream-bright America—for are not our childhood memories comparable to Vineland-born caravelles, indolently encircled by the white birds of dreams? The protagonist, a scion of one of our most illustrious and opulent families, is Dr. Van Veen, son of Baron 'Demon' Veen, that memorable Manhattan and Reno figure. The end of an extraordinary epoch coincides with Van's no less extraordinary boyhood. Nothing in world literature, save maybe Count Tolstoy's reminiscences, can vie in pure joyousness and Areadian innocence with the 'Ardis' part of the book. On the fabulous country estate of his art-collecting uncle, Daniel Veen, an ardent childhood romance develops in a series of fascinating scenes between Van and pretty Ada, a truly unusual gamine daughter of Marina, Daniel's stage-struck wife. That the relationship is not simply dangerous cousinage, but possesses an aspect prohibited by law, is hinted in the very first pages.
Review, 2639 words
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