Stella Gibbons detestation of pomposity and pretence. Truss has described Gibbons as "the Jane Austen of the 20th century", a parallel which the novelist Malcolm Bradbury thought apt; Flora Poste in "Cold Comfort Farm", with her "higher common sense", is "a Jane-ite heroine transformed into a clear-eyed modern woman". Bradbury also observed that many of Gibbons's novels end in Austen-like nuptials. Truss highlights the importance that Gibbons places on detachment as a necessary adjunct to effective writing: "Like many a good doctor, she seems to have considered sympathy a peculiar and redundant emotion, and a terrible waste of time." This matter-of-fact quality
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle a necessary book, radiant and rapturous" and said that it "provides further evidence that he is a peer of Kafka, Proust and Joyce". According to David Eagleman, Nabokov named the title character in part after his favorite butterfly. An avid (and professional) collector of butterflies, Nabokov especially liked one species with yellow wings and a black body. As a synesthete, he associated colors with each letter; "A" with yellow, and "D" with black. Thus he saw a reflection of his favorite butterfly (yellow-black-yellow) in the name "Ada". His character, Ada, wanted to be a lepidopterist. "Ada" is also a pun,