About this title: Vladimir Nabokov's dazzling autobiography, published in 1966, is a dense and enchanting flood of recollections--of his comfortable bourgeois childhood and adolescence, his obsession with lepidoptery, his rich and liberal-minded father, his beautiful and compassionate mother, an army of relations and hangers-on, and St. Petersburg in pre ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Rev. ed.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam, New York
Date Published: 1966
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. edge & shelf wear. 316 p. illus., col. map (on lining papers) ports. 22 cm. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679723394ISBN:0679723390
Description: Good. Moderate cover wear with scuffing to edges and creasing. Minor highlighting on pages. Previous owner's writing on front cover. GoodwillnyBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. You may return new items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679723394ISBN:0679723390
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. old pricing sticker on back. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 316 p. Contains: Illustrations. Vintage International (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Acceptable. Binding is slightly damaged and/or book has some loose pages. No missing pages. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: Rev. ed.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Putnam, New York
Date Published: 1966
Description: Good in very good dust jacket. Good++ A great used copy with some rubbing, edge wear and creases to cover. Page are in excellent condition! 316 p. illus., col. map (on lining papers) ports. 22 cm. Includes: Illustrations, Maps, Portraits. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Capricorn Books
Date Published: 1970
Description: Good. Good paperback. Previous owner's name on end paper and inside front cover, pages are otherwise clean and unmarked. Covers show edge wear with creasing and yellowing on rear.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Free Delivery Confirmation! Ships same or next business day! read more
Edition: Rev. ed.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam, New York
Date Published: 1966
Description: Very good in poor dust jacket. 316 p. illus., col. map (on lining papers) ports. 22 cm. Includes: Illustrations, Maps, Portraits. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Date Published: 1966
Description: Good. Binding is tight and square. No names, no remainder marks, no stickers. Text is clean, bright and unmarked. No DJ. Careful packaging and fast shipping. We recommend EXPEDITED MAIL for even faster delivery! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Capricorn Books, New York
Date Published: 1970
Description: Octavo. 316 pages. Illustrated with photographic reproductions. Index. Spine creased, covers worn, underlining one pages, else a good copy. From the library of retired Professor of English (and creative writing) Dale H. Edmonds (Tulane University) with his signature and underlining. read more
Edition: Revised Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York
Date Published: 1966
Description: Good. No Jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Cover is bumped, scuffed with edgewear. Pgs. are browning, there is a name plate on back of fep. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Perigee Trade
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780399502200ISBN:0399502203
Description: Very Good. Clean text. Illustrated. The Russian-American novelist, poet, and critic Vladimir Nabokov, (1899-1977) is best known for his novel Lolita. Nabokov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He began writing for the Russian emigre press in Berlin, under the pseudonym of Vladimir Sirin. In 1940 Nabokov moved to the United States and five years later became an American citizen. Nabokov's memoir is a moving account of a loving, civilized family, of adolescent awakenings, flight from ... read more
"Scriere placuta si lina, care prin frumusetea descrierilor m'a plimbat prin locuri n_e_m_a_i_v_a_z_u_t_e dar, uite asa, i_m_a_g_i_n_a_t_e :) Am colindat paduri, am fugit pe plaja impreuna cu Colette si Floss, am simtit mainile aspre ale lui Mademoiselle, am simtit din plin zborul fluturilor, iar adierea vioaie a aripilor acestora razbate de'a lungul intregii autobiografii, nu numai in capitolul alocat acestei pasiuni. Cu Nabokov am ris, am ris pe strada cu oameni mirati linga mine, am ris de perceptiile lui asupra predicilor din biserica si perceptiile americanilor asupra lui vazindu'l la vinatoare de fluturi :)) M'a plimbat prin toata istoria familiei lui, prezentindu'i pe fiecare cu bunele si relele lui, m'a rugat sa pastrez tacere cind si'a inceput descrierea aventurilor romantice, m'a incalzit cu modul subtil in care a introdus'o pe ea in scrierea'i si m'a facut sa zimbesc simtind dragaleasenia acestor "tu si cu mine", "tu si copilul nostru". Mi'a facut placere aceasta incursiunea pe tarimurile vietii lui Nabokov, luata de mina chiar de el. Da, as mai reveni aici :)
~~~
In acest moment se petrece un lucru incintator. Procesul de reconstituire a tocului si a microcosmosului din ochiul lui magic imi stimuleaza memoria, determinind'o sa faca un ultim efort. Incerc din nou sa'mi amintesc numele cainelui Colettei - si, victorie! De'a lungul acelei plaje indepartate, peste luciul nisipului de seara din trecut, in care fiecare urma de pas se umplea incet cu apa luminata de apusul soarelui, se aud, se aud tot mai aproape, ecoul si vibratia strigatului: Floss! Floss! Floss!
Marturisesc ca nu cred in timp. Imi place sa'mi string covorul fermecat dupa folosinta, in asa fel incit sa suprapun o parte a modelului peste alta. Vizitatorii n'au decit sa se impiedice. Si bucuria cea mai mare a senzatiei de atemporalitate - intr'un peisaj ales la intimplare - o am atunci cind ma aflu printre fluturi rari si uzinele lor de hrana. Pentru mine este un extaz si in spatele extazului mai e ceva, greu de explicat. Este ca un vacuum momentan in care navaleste tot ce iubesc. O senzatie de unicitate cu soare si piatra. Un fior de recunostinta fata de tot ce il produce - fata de geniul contrapunctic al destinului uman sau fata de duhuri care'i fac pe plac unui norocos muritor."
"An wormhole of synthestesia and nostalgia. Absolutely strange but organically beautiful. It's like a letter written home to Memory as a mother. I don't think there any other memoir is structured quite like this one.
""The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged -- the same house, the same people -- and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.""
"You will never read a better memoir in your life. I've read it three times and I'm still not satisfied that I've read it enough.
From the text:
"I would moreover submit that, in regard to the power of hoarding up impressions, Russian children of my generation passed through a period of genius, as if destiny were loyally trying what it could for them by giving them more than their share, in view of the cataclysm that was to remove completely the world they had known."
Nabokov is referring here to the 1917 and 1918 revolutions that effectively evicted his and many other wealthy families from the country -- if they were lucky enough not to have been shot (Sadly, Nabokov's father was shot through the heart in 1922, while foiling an assassination attempt on his friend, in Berlin). What follows the prior paragraph is one of the funnier lines in the book:
"Genius disappeared when everything had been stored, just as it does with those other, more specialized child prodigies -- pretty, curly-headed youngsters waving batons or taming enormous pianos, who eventually turn into second-rate musicians with sad eyes and obscure ailments and something vaguely misshapen about their eunuchoid hindquarters."
I love this because I remember meeting at Day's Murray Music music store one of the original "Spanky's Gang" TV show cast members when I was a young boy, which would put him about sixty- or seventy-years old at the time. What's funny is that he was everything thing Nabokov described: a second-rate violinist playing second- or third chair in the Murray municipal symphony; He was a neck-brace-wearing, lumpy- and sexlessly-rumped sad-sack of a man, with very sad eyes. Now I know that he is a type: the Prodigy in Decline.
I could go on and on for hours quoting "Speak, Memory" and in the end I'd have typed out the entire book. I'll leave you with these little bookends:
From the introductory paragraph: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternitiues of darkness."
Which sounds kind of nihilistic until you get to this little line: "Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap."
And even though Nabokov didn't subscribe to religion at all, and wouldn't claim belief in an "anthropomorphic deity", he did believe in a kind of intelligent design, although not of the brand we're familiar with today. No, he felt that this was an artistic kind of deity, a benevolent mind; Nabokov believed that one's life purpose was to discover "Its" unique design in, on or with one's life. Thus we get to this concluding paragraph:
"The following of such thematic designs through one's life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography."
That, in a nutshell, is the subject matter of "Speak, Memory": a man's search for the personality or soul of his maker."
"My overall feeling is this: I don't buy it. Nabokov claims to have inherited special genius from his mother, including a near-photographic memory supported by intense synesthesia. The self-described mnemonic genius illustrates his gifts by spending much of "Speak, Memory" describing detailed scenes from age 5 and under - including sights, sounds, smells, thoughts and feelings which I am very skeptical that he could have formed and retained accurate memory for. Apparently, Nabokov was also one of the worlds great mathematical geniuses as a child, but lost this particular gift as he grew older.
The majority of the autobiography reads like an advertisement for Nabokov's super-natural mnemonic skills, almost entirely focusing on the minutia of everyday events during his very early childhood. There is little discussion devoted to the revolution and other of the more dramatic periods of his life - At times this creates a haunting atmosphere through what is not said, but at other times, this approach was not so effective.
The book is absolutely beautifully written, of course, and is worth reading just for Nabokov's breathtaking, unexpected descriptions of everyday life as a child."
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