Ada tells the life story of a man named Van Veen, and his lifelong love affair with his sister Ada. They meet when she is eleven and he is fourteen, believing that they are cousins (more precisely: that their fathers are cousins and that their mothers are sisters), and begin a sexual affair. They later discover that Van's father is also Ada's and her mother is also his. The story follows the various interruptions and resumptions of their affair. Both are wealthy, educated, and intelligent. Van goes on to become a world-renowned psychologist, and the book itself takes the form of his memoirs, written when he is in his nineties. Vladimir Nabokov, aka by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, (1899-1977) was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator and entomologist. His Lolita (1955), his most noted novel in English, was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list, and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on the publisher's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times. Please read the book before arriving at the book discussion. For ages 18 +.
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