Book 12 - Vladimir Nabokov "Speak Memory"

[jazzy_dave]

Vladimir Nabokov "Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited" (Penguin Modern Classics)






Even the name of this wonderfully lyrical autobiography is commanding. Speak! And speak it does. Of love, of loss, of finding a new life and being able to leap to safety to embrace it. But......Love....more than anything is what Vladimir Nabokov's partial autobiography resonates with. His enduring and all-encompassing love for his family.

He takes the reader on a journey of the senses, of the dim and yet luminous memories of childhood, through the eyes of a genius with unprecedented attention for detail. Nabokov does not walk us through every relationship, every transition, etc. Rather, he gathers and recollects the memories of colour, of feeling, and learning that are most important to him. There are remarkable passages in this text, including remarkably varied intellectual topics, i.e.: literature, politics, chess, mathematics, lepidoptery, etc.

It only covers 37 of his 77 years, but what 37 years it was! St. Petersburg to Cambridge, Berlin and Paris to America. The book ends with his sighting of the ship that will carry Nabokov and his little family to America and safety. The safety that so many were not able for so many terrible reasons to find themselves, including members of his own family.

Nabokov does not give a blow-by-blow account of his life, but in vignettes that 'speak' of his life and his family's life. He tells the story of his courageous father and the battles for a democratically styled Russia, the powerful personality of his beloved mother, his tragic brother....all is exposed, yet not. The story of his life with Véra, his other self, is given, but not displayed. The love he feels for his little son Dimitri is almost beyond words. All of this is served for the readers' enjoyment.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Nabokov is generally a good read.