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[Fwd: Chabon on _Lolita_, _Ada_ in Today's New York Times]
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Subject: Chabon on _Lolita_, _Ada_ in Today's New York Times
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 12:14:24 -0400
From: "Juan Martinez" <jmmartin@mail.ucf.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/16/national/nationalspecial/16ENDI.html
Michael Chabon
It depends how you want to be left feeling. There are certain paragraphs that leave you feeling totally devastated like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (". . . because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity upon the earth.") You close the book and just say "Wow!" The end of "Lolita" is similar in its effect, you have the same feeling of devastation. Then there's another kind of ending that I love, which leaves you feeling giddy and buoyed up because it's just so right, like the final piece has just snapped into place. The last paragraph of Nabokov's "Ada" is a perfect example. It carries forth all the themes of the book in this parody of dustjacket writing, (". . . butterflies and butterfly orchids in the margin of a romance . . . ").
Cheers,
Juan
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