Speak, Memory [Hardcover]

Nabokov wants to make sure that his audience departs with what he is trying to convey—his ideas, himself. The petal is Nabokov, the “float down” is similar to death (the petals die after falling), the reflection is the water is the audience, and the reflection is the reflection of Nabokov’s essence. Nabokov wants the world, his audience, to catch him as he falls, to preserve him and reflect exactly what he sees himself as being. He worries that when he finishes falling, that the trick will not work. He is afraid that the petal will float away alone, the reflection lost somewhere in the stream. The “magic” connection is vital to Nabokov’s preservation. He wants to immortalize his memories, his thoughts, himself. To accomplish this, other people must remember him as he sees himself. He must be able to clearly convey what’s in his mind. The more people who remember him, understand him, and relate to him, the longer he will last. Writing about his life while using imagery from everyday life and nature is part of what Nabokov uses to ensure his preservation. The reason for this being that most people have seen some of nature and can imagine the feeling he is expressing through his imagery. Nabokov’s autobiography stays alive when it is preserved in nature because nature is living. The butterflies drifting amongst a sea of grass, the caterpillar stretching to see where its leaf went, all of these are in action (44). Writing about nature and life in prose serves to further add to this living feeling because prose is melodious and varies. So rather than kill his life by turning it into a list of facts and dates, Nabokov is able to seal it in a sort of biosphere, keeping everything inside his autobiography alive.

(...)

Nabokov's ancestors had numerous and diverse contacts with the world of letters. Nabokov says that his nostalgia is nostalgia for a lost childhood not lost banknotes. The kind of Russian family to which Nabokov belonged had a leaning toward English products, Pears soap, English toothpaste. Vladimir learned to read English before he learned to read Russian.

One is always at home in one's past. Vladimir found his own French governess and his mother's governess living in retirement in Lausanne, Switzerland. The women spoke to one another then, although in the past when they were in the same house they ignored one another.

He was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. The tutor started in 1906. When he was eleven his father decided that he should attend school. His father belonged to the great classless intelligentsia in Russia. In 1917-18 the family was put into a position of utter insecurity. His father became a minister of justice and the family was lodged near Yalta. In 1919 three Nabokov families fled Russia via the Crimea and Greece. From 1920 to 1940 Nabokov spent time preparing chess problems.

The book has pictures and an index. The publishing history of the book's parts appears in the forward. The book has charm. The fascination of the study of butterflies is treated by the author. Another subject covered is an extensive catalogue of both near and distant ancestors of the Nabokovs.