Transcript of the Ada Forum
Mar.-Apr. 2005 (Part I Ch. 22-24)
Brian Boyd and the Kyoto Reading Circle

This is the last of the Ada Forum Transcripts. It covers the cyberspace exchanges
between Brian Boyd and the Kyoto Reading Circle on the latter’s annotations for Part I,
Chapters 22 –24. With the annotations to Chapter 24, the Circle has begun to tread
fresh ground without the comforting guidance of Brian Boyd’s annotations in The

Nabokovian.
Up to now, both the Kyoto Reading Circle’s Annotations to Ada and the internet forum
that followed it had been published in Krug, the Nabokov Society of Japan newsletter. Itis my pleasure to announce that the Circle’s Annotations and the Forum transcripts will
henceforth be shown on the internet site of the Nabokov Society of Japan.
To celebrate Nabokov’s 106th birthday—April 23, 2005—the Circle’s annotations and thecorresponding Ada Forum transcripts will be uploaded on the “Kyoto Reading Circle”
page of the “Nabokov Society of Japan”site. Annotations for the subsequent chapterswill follow as soon as they are edited by the Circle.
We welcome participation by Nabokov readers of Ada worldwide on our annotations inthe internet Nabokov forum, NABOKV-L. Readers with queries or suggestions for theCircle Annotations who are unfamiliar with NABOKV-L are encouraged to subscribe toNABOKV-L as follows:

To subscribe, send the following message to listserv@listserv.ucsb.edu:
Subscribe NABOKV-L [Your Name]We look forward to your responses. –Shoko Miura, Forum Editor.
Forum Discussion on KRC Annotations Part I Chapters 22−24[Brian Boyd]
This comes at a pressured time for me, so I don’t have much to say, except that I’m gladyou’ve now taken over from me the role of ploughing virgin soil.
Nevertheless:141.13: “The ‘
crescent’is Van’s exhausted part”: are you sure? The sphingid larva at
56.07-10 seems more like Van’s“part,”and the curved groove eaten out of the leaf might
if anything seem more Ada-like (not that I think the references are primarily sexual inthis particular phrase).
140.04: Yes, that “Which”is nicely trivial (in the sense of “three-way”): the tome, thescene in the grotto while “everybody had gone to Brantôme”(140.25), and the vines (if,as you suggest, the “Which”refers in part to Vendange) in both the pictures in the tome,
and in the grotto.
141.18: a Venetian blonde: more a reference to Venetian painters Titian and PalmaVecchio (141.17-18) and their blondes, surely?
146.31: Nice link with the “ghosts”on Van’s arrival at Ardis (and rather like the“phantom . . . ghost”motif associated with Hazel in the poem “Pale Fire”).
148.9: I am puzzled by the Parluggian Owl. Don Barton Johnson seems to suggest there
is an owl with this name (or at least Parluggla); others seem to assume the name is VN’sinvention.
148.12: Don’t jingle them: there is only one bottle. Perhaps the bottle and the owl? But
how does even a stuffed owl jingle?
149.21: Nice link.
Otherwise everything looks fine. I have yet to tackle I.24 myself, so have no idea quite
how it will turn out (and I ’ll still be pressed for time), but it will be valuable to have thesoil already turned.
[Akiko Nakata]Thank you very much, Brian, for your reply. I am terribly sorry for a long silence.
141.13: “The ‘
crescent’is Van’s exhausted part”: are you sure?

Tadashi promised to explain it.
141.18: a Venetian blonde: more a reference to Venetian painters Titian and PalmaVecchio (141.17-18) and their blondes, surely?
Of course, yes. We meant "besides Titian and Palma Vecchio and their blondes."148.12: Don’t jingle them: there is only one bottle. Perhaps the bottle and the owl? But
how does even a stuffed owl jingle?
You are right, Brian. There is only one bottle. Grammatically, "them" must be the "glasscases" or just some jingling things there, or could be the keys Van is carrying. But the"jingle" sound and the empty bottle on the shelf evoke the figurative "little bottle" (its"original" is a medicine bottle beating on the shelf while Van and Ada are making love)"tinkling on its (that is, in a safe place of her mind) shelf" that we have just read in
Lucette's last note to Van. I think the association made us duplicate the only empty
bottle here and I even suspect the obscure "them" is meant to give that effect.
Thanks for your kind words on our reckless project. I hope we have not just defiled
the lovely, dreamy, enormous ADA land with our blind steps in vain.
[Tadashi Wakashima]
First , I apologize for this late posting.
141.13: “The ‘
crescent’is Van’s exhausted part”: are you sure?
Sorry, giving an explanation is not my intention, and I just want to make a rather
puerile remark.
"There was a crescent eaten out of a vine leaf by a sphingid larva." This description iscertainly naturalistic as Brian suggests, but there is a playful superimposition ofimages: a sphingid larva eating a vine leaf and a tendril climer biting the neck of acolumn.
And for this occasion, let me quote John Updike's praise in his review "Van Loves Ada,Ada Loves Van, " collected in Picked-Up Pieces: "Nabokov adds a charming page (page141) to the rapidly expanding American anthology of fellatio.€35[Shoko Miura]
Dear Forum Members:
I am sorry to see the Forum go, but I do believe all is for the best. We will be able toshare what we have found with other Nabokovians in the world.
I thank everyone for the precious contributions you have made to the Forum. I amespecially grateful to Brian Boyd for having joined us and guided us into delightful
discoveries and stimulating exchanges. It was so typical of Brian's generosity to offer toask Jeff Edmunds to put a link for the KRC annotations to the appropriate pages ofADAonline. By the way, congratulations, Brian, on the anniversary of ADAonline!
I depend on Brian to continue to discuss our annotations with us, only this time itwill be in NABOKV-L.
So, I will now close the last session of the ADA Forum.
Thank you all.