Speak, Memory (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

I could quote almost any section of this book to show how magnificent it is - it’s been proclaimed the memoir of the century in some corners and I wouldn’t be able to muster much effort to argue to the contrary. For instance, the sequence at the end of Chapter One that, as Brian Boyd in the introduction points out, "pays tribute to Nabokov’s father, anticipates his death, and seems...more

I could quote almost any section of this book to show how magnificent it is - it’s been proclaimed the memoir of the century in some corners and I wouldn’t be able to muster much effort to argue to the contrary. For instance, the sequence at the end of Chapter One that, as Brian Boyd in the introduction points out, "pays tribute to Nabokov’s father, anticipates his death, and seems to leave him suspended in the timelessness that the very shape of the autobiography’s sentences somehow impart on their subjects:" In his idyllic Russian childhood Nabokov’s father, called outside from his lunch by a group of peasants who worked the estate, and having granted their request ("a plea for his mediation in some local feud" etc), would be "put through the national ordeal of being rocked and tossed up and securely caught by a score or so of strong arms." From my place at table I would suddenly see through one of the west windows a marvelous case of levitation. There, for an instant, the figure of my father in his wind-rippled white summer suit would be displayed, gloriously sprawling in mid-air, his limbs in a curiously casual attitude, his handsome, imperturbable features turned to the sky. Thrice, to the mighty heave-ho of his invisible tossers, he would fly up in this fashion, and the second time he would go higher than the first and then there he would be, on his last and loftiest flight, reclining as if for good, against the cobalt blue of the summer noon, like one of those paradisiac personages who comfortably soar, with such a wealth of folds in their garments, on the vaulted ceiling of a church while below, one by one, the wax tapers in mortal hands light up to make a swarm of minute flames in the mist of incense, and the priest chants of eternal repose, and funeral lilies conceal the face of whoever lies there, among the swimming lights, in the open coffin.   hide

How lucky are we to be able to go into this brilliant man's mind through books he wrote..

Nabokov writes as one who truly loves to write. His prose is so ecstatic it's impossible not to be swept away by him. I have no interest in butterfly collecting or chess, but when he writes about these, they are endlessly fascinating.

You have to read this one carefully, as even in his autobiography Nabokov leaves elusive clues as to the nature of important events, and it is up to the reader to connect the dots.

My favourite one. I don't like autobiographies, but this one... Nabokov has lived the most interesting times - childhood in pre revolutional capital of Russian empire, Europe between the 2 wars, and USA after the 2WW. His genius makes us live the History, feel it.

Dense and richly textured. One of the few writers that I need to use a dictionary in order to thoroughly understand. A different way to write a biography but leave it up to Nabokov to do it this way. Highly literate and dense.