A NOTE BEFORE READING: This is not like any of my other book reviews. The book is “Ada, or Ardor, a Family Chronicle” by Vladimir Nabokov, author of “Lolita”. As “Lolita” dealt with pedophilia, so “Ada” deals with incest, and the tale is the recount of one Ivan “Van” Veen and his relationship with his half-sister Ada. They share a common father and twin mothers (or possibly they are both the children of the same woman; there is conflicting evidence), so they are biologically siblings. All of this takes place on an Earth known as Demonia, or Antiterra, which, some time in the recent past, accidentally became aware of “Terra” – implied to be our world, one universe over – during an incident known as the Lettrocalamity. “The L disaster,” as it is known, was apparently so awful that electricity is totally banned and the poorly understood world of Terra is mystified. Annoyingly, this is never discussed in full.

“Ada” is billed on the back cover as Nabokov’s crowning achievement. I actually started writing this review the same month I started reading the book: August 2007. What follows is actually the pared-down edition of a book review that was, at one time, 3,500 words long.

Van Veen meets his “cousin” Adelaida in the summer of 1884. Ada lives at the estate of Artis with her mother Marina, her father Dan, and her half sister Lucette. Marina married Dan when his cousin (Demon Veen, Van’s father) knocked her up.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” We can thank John Lennon for that lovely quote, and women of all ages can thank Levonorgestrel, or Plan B for letting them stick to their life plans when they need it the most. Plan B is an emergency contraceptive pill that is used to prevent pregnancy after having unprotected sex. For example, if the condom broke, or you were forced to have sex, or if you missed your birth control pills for more than two days in a row, the Plan B pill is safe backup protection from pregnancy. However, a regular form of birth control, like condoms, the pill, or the ring, is still necessary to have safe sex.

Frequency Now Broadcasting

Today’s dispatch is about radio, but before we dive into that, there are two things I’d like to clear up:

One: In an update to my last installment, I’d like to say that the print shop goldfish is doing quite well. He seemed to be kind of lonely, though, so I picked up another one to keep him company. Hopefully they’ll like each other, and maybe they’ll even breed – although I have never actually heard of goldfish raising young, and I am unable to shake the feeling that they don’t. My theory is that they simply arise asexually when the pet shop owner sprinkles goldfish spores into the tank.