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Fwd: Two notes on ADA
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Dear List,
1) Bertrand Russell quotes Thomas Aquinas (and his SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES) as
a remarkable example of attempting to rationalize moral precepts. Thus,
incest should be forbidden because it would complicate family life. There is
a very curious argument against brother-sister incest, which I thought would
be of some interest to ADA connoiseurs: that if the love of husband and wife
were combined with that of brother and sister, mutual attraction would be so
strong as to cause unduly frequent intercourse.
2) Brian Boyd notes that Ada is a character in Dickens's BLEAK HOUSE (which
was part of the course of European literature VN taught at Cornell and
Harvard). The part-time narrator of the novel, Esther Summerson, addresses
Ada as her "pet", "my precious pet" (I have in mind the sentence quoted in
VN's lectures, p. 121, in the HBJ edition). Now, in ADA Van and Ada have
dubbed Lucette pet, which for them is a French word (fart, an emission of
wind from the anus), "it all started with the little one letting wee winds
go free at table, circa 1882" (Part 2, Ch. 8). Perhaps it may serve as
another link between the novels. On the whole, I would suggest that ADA owes
a great deal to VN's lectures on Russian and European literature. I offer
this as a tentative remark, since I haven't read BLEAK HOUSE yet.
Sergey Karpukhin
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1) Bertrand Russell quotes Thomas Aquinas (and his SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES) as
a remarkable example of attempting to rationalize moral precepts. Thus,
incest should be forbidden because it would complicate family life. There is
a very curious argument against brother-sister incest, which I thought would
be of some interest to ADA connoiseurs: that if the love of husband and wife
were combined with that of brother and sister, mutual attraction would be so
strong as to cause unduly frequent intercourse.
2) Brian Boyd notes that Ada is a character in Dickens's BLEAK HOUSE (which
was part of the course of European literature VN taught at Cornell and
Harvard). The part-time narrator of the novel, Esther Summerson, addresses
Ada as her "pet", "my precious pet" (I have in mind the sentence quoted in
VN's lectures, p. 121, in the HBJ edition). Now, in ADA Van and Ada have
dubbed Lucette pet, which for them is a French word (fart, an emission of
wind from the anus), "it all started with the little one letting wee winds
go free at table, circa 1882" (Part 2, Ch. 8). Perhaps it may serve as
another link between the novels. On the whole, I would suggest that ADA owes
a great deal to VN's lectures on Russian and European literature. I offer
this as a tentative remark, since I haven't read BLEAK HOUSE yet.
Sergey Karpukhin
----- End forwarded message -----