Speak, Memory
Book description
An autobiographical volume which recounts the story of Nabokov's first forty years up to his departure from Europe for America at the outset of World War Two. It tells of his emergence as a writer, his early loves and his marriage, and his passions for butterflies and his lost homeland.…
Why read it?
4 authors picked Speak, Memory as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This classic book, unlike others in the list, is not so much about memory, as a collection of the author’s memories of his childhood and early years.
Nabokov was born into a wealthy family in pre-Revolutionary Russia in 1899. His childhood in St. Petersburg and at the family’s country estate are described in loving detail, as are aspects of later years in England, Germany, and France. Nabokov was one of the great writers of the 20th Century, and the memories are recounted in his glowing and evocative prose.
His writing is nostalgic, but also wryly humorous, aware that many aspects…
From Fergus' list on how your memory works – and why it often doesn't.
Exquisite writing Nabokov-style would be enough of a reason to put this book, seen by some as one of the most influential books of all times, at the top of my list.
Speak, Memory was assembled from short stories that were published first separately, without any indication that they were autobiographical. This memoir was born literary, even as it contains fascinating historical details about Russia before the Russian Revolution. Nabokov does not betray his longing for this lost world even as he reconstructs it in meticulous and vivid details.
The political aspect, although so important for a writer whose family…
From Andreea's list on memoirs about crossing cultures to find yourself.
Nabokov's ability to catch and pin ephemeral ideas provides sumptuous reflections in this prism of his analytic perception. Speak, Memory is a ludic, linguistic, conjuring of memories. The chapters were written on different occasions and collated for this purpose. He even wrote an extra Chapter (16) as an anonymous reviewer, explaining "He (Nabokov) is out to prove that his childhood contained, on a much-reduced scale, the main components of his creative maturity; thus, through the thin sheath of a ripe chrysalis one can see, in its small wing cases, the dawning of color and pattern, a miniature revelation of the…
From Henry's list on psychological enquiry in alternative formats.
Out of all Vladimir Nabokov’s books, Speak Memory -- this rebellion “against the two eternities of darkness which bookend a human life” -- is the one I return to most often. Exiled and dispossessed by the Russian Revolution of 1917, Nabokov manages to escape the snares of nostalgia. He does not grieve the lost past, but revisits the very heart of his Russia, the people, the sites, the tastes of his childhood and adolescence. Speak Memory does not end with exile. Nabokov chronicles the lives of the Russian emigres in Berlin and Paris, the necessary adjustments and transformations of…
From Eva's list on Russia’s history and culture.
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