爱达或爱欲：一部家族纪事 (1969)

《爱达或爱欲：一部家族纪事》（Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle）是弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫的一部小说，出版于1969年。

《爱达》的写作可追溯到1959年，当时弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫正在写两本书，《时间的纹理》（The Texture of Time）和《来自地球的信》（Letters from Terra）。1965年，他开始看到这两个构思之间的联系，最后在1966年2月到1968年10月，将其编撰成一部统一的小说。出版后，成为他最长的作品。《爱达》最初受到混合的欢迎。但是，著名学者阿尔弗雷德·阿佩尔在《纽约时报书评》上著文，称其为“一件伟大的艺术作品，一本必需的书，光芒四射（radiant），令人狂喜（rapturous）”，并说它“提供了进一步的证据，表明他是卡夫卡、普鲁斯特和乔伊斯的同侪”。

情节

《爱达》讲述了凡·维恩与爱达的终生恋情。他们正式的关系是表兄妹。他们相遇时，她不到十二岁，他十四岁，他们的父亲是堂兄弟，而他们的母亲是姐妹。他们开始青春期疯狂的性关系。后来，他们发现，凡的父亲也是爱达的父亲，而爱达的母亲也是凡的母亲。接下来的故事，写他们的关系时而中断，时而恢复。两人都很富有、受过良好教育、聪明。凡后来成为世界著名的心理学家，这本书本身就是以回忆录的形式，在他90多岁时所写。

小说分为五个部分，每部分的长度都比前一部分短一些（第四部分是唯一的例外）。它们按时间顺序发展，这种结构唤起了一个人唤醒自己记忆的感觉，青春期的时光史诗般地延展，而日后的漫长岁月只是偶尔闪烁。

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. It was originally published in 1969 by McGraw Hill Book Company and is currently published by Penguin Random House.

Ada, or Ardor began to materialize in 1959, when Nabokov was flirting with two projects, "The Texture of Time" and "Letters from Terra." In 1965, he began to see a link between the two ideas, finally composing a unified novel from February 1966 to October 1968. The published cumulation would become his longest work. Ada was initially given a mixed reception. However, writing in The New York Times Book Review, noted scholar Alfred Appel called it "a great work of art, a necessary book, radiant and rapturous," and said that it "provides further evidence that he is a peer of Kafka, Proust and Joyce."

Title

According to David Eagleman, Nabokov named the title character in part after his favorite butterfly. An avid professional collector of butterflies, Nabokov especially liked a particular species with yellow wings and a black body. As a synesthete, he associated colors with each letter; A with yellow, and D with black. Thus he saw a reflection of his favorite butterfly (yellow-black-yellow) in the name "Ada." His character, Ada, wanted to be a lepidopterist.

"Ada" is also a pun, a homophone, for "Ardor." Marina, Ada's mother, pronounces her name with "long, deep" Russian "A"s, which is how a speaker of non-rhotic English would say the word "Ardor." Ada's name includes a play on Ad (Ад), Russian for Hell, which serves as a theme throughout the story.

Plot summary

Ada, or Ardor tells the life story of a man named Van Veen, and his lifelong love affair with his sister Ada. They meet when she is eleven (soon to be twelve) and he is fourteen, believing that they are cousins (more precisely: that their fathers are cousins and that their mothers are sisters), and begin a sexual affair. They later discover that Van's father is also Ada's and her mother is also his, hence they themselves are genealogically both third cousins (a relationship both putative and actual) and siblings. The story follows the various interruptions and resumptions of their affair. Both are wealthy, educated, and intelligent. The book itself takes the form of his memoir, written when he is in his nineties, punctuated with his own and Ada's marginalia, and in parts with notes by an unnamed editor which suggest that the manuscript is not complete.

The novel is divided into five parts. As they progress chronologically, this structure evokes a sense of a person reflecting on his own memories, with an adolescence stretching out epically, and many later years simply flashing by.