Like those other great protean modernists, Joyce and Picasso, Nabokov uses parody to re-investigate the fundamental problems of this art. While Van in the early chapters is waiting to be born, so too is the great age of the novel. Tolstoy the moralist would certain not approve, as Nabokov well knows. At the age of 97, even a philosopher who has negated the Future may be prompted to explore the subject further. Ada and Van Veen contemplate their prospects for the future.
Death is imagined as eternal pain, a form of madness.
This is a. . Hers is but one of several howls audible throughout the novel, even in Ardis, since death casts a shadow in Arcady too. In Part Five, the nocturnal torments and terrors of old age move into the foreground of the novel. These final pages are as deeply pleasureful as they are moving. Yes, the name includes both Eden and Hades, and the ardor of Nabokov's art, the exuberance and luminosity of his prose, is equal to the infinite riches of consciousness.