History Literature / AdaOrArdor

''Ada, or Ardor: a Family Chronicle'' is a 1969 novel by Creator/VladimirNabokov, taking the form of the long[[hottip:*:Nabokov's longest novel, in fact]] memoirs of a psychiatrist around 1967 looking back at his 97 years of life. Rather than his career or philosophical thinking, however, the bulk of it concerns his over 80-year-long love affair with his cousin (actually sister), the eponymous Ada.

* MaidOfSexy: Blanche

* ChivalrousPervert: Played with. Van Veen shows no chivalry towards sexually attractive women he considers low class, such as Blanche and the "fubsy pink whorelet" who relieved him of his virginity. However he does shows some tenderness and gallantry towards women whose class matches his such as his half-sister Lucette and the child prostitutes at the Villa Venus which (in theory anyway) recruits from the aristocracy only.

* ShoutOut: The nonfiction work ''The Ambidextrous Universe'' by Martin Gardner quoted [[PaleFire John Shade]]; Nabokov returned the favor by having Van mention John Shade being quoted by the "invented philosopher" Gardiner [sic] in that book.

* JerkAssProtagonist: Van. Nabokov himself called him "horrible."

* UpperClassTwit: Van Veen. Nabokov himself described him as "horrible."

* FreudWasRight: Double entendre is everywhere; the most innocuous item has suggestive connotations, such the pupae Ada tends and the grooved troughs used in a game of Scrabble. All this may be satirizing some readers' tendency to see suggestive symbolism everywhere.

* BandOfBrothers: Villa Venus, a chain of exclusive brothels with a select aristocratic clientele.

* ChivalrousPervert: Played with. Van Veen shows no chivalry towards sexually attractive women he considers low class, such as Blanche and the "fubsy pink whorelet" who relieved him of his virginity. However he does shows some tenderness and gallantry towards women whose class mathces his such as his half-sister Lucette and the child prostitutes at the Villa Venus which (in theory anyway) recruits from the aristocracy only.

* CuteNerd: Ada as a young girl is obsessed with entomology and botany. (Virtually every man in her vicinity still wants to bed her, however.)

* AristocratsAreEvil: The Veen family whose male members are sexually fixated on very young girls. They are also contemptuous of ordinary people to the point where they often feel physical disgust around them.

* InterruptedInitmacy: Lucette as a child frequently and deliberately interrupts Van and Ada's lovemaking.

* AristocratsAreEvil: The Veen family whose male members are sexually fixated on very young girls. They are also contemptuous of ordinary people to the point where they feel physical disgust around them.

* AristocratsAreEvil: The Veen family whose male members are sexually fixated on very young girls.

''Ada, or Ardor: a Family Chronicle'' is a 1969 novel by VladimirNabokov, taking the form of the long[[hottip:*:Nabokov's longest novel, in fact]] memoirs of a psychiatrist around 1967 looking back at his 97 years of life. Rather than his career or philosophical thinking, however, the bulk of it concerns his over 80-year-long love affair with his cousin (actually sister), the eponymous Ada.