Speak, Memory Analysis

Sorting HistorySt. Petersburg was in the middle of so many doings during this period it's hard to know where to start. For our purposes, let's use the lens of the Nabokovs to narrow down the histor...

As has been discussed elsewhere, we get two first person points of view in this autobiography: Vladimir the young boy, going through the events of the story, and Nabokov, the older man, looking bac...

This here book is not only an autobiography, it's a "revised" autobiography, which means that along with the usual life story, we also get updates made between the first and third editions. Not onl...

Because this book is Nabokov's retrospective of his time as a kid and young émigré, he's had lots of time to think, think, think. Every event is held up for consideration, and even the quality of...

Say what you will about Nabokov, but he's never plain, nor simple. His meditations on big, abstract ideas use a rhetorical device that's somewhere in between stream-of-consciousness and romantic-ly...

"Speak, Memory" hasn't been this book's only title, which should tell us something big. In the foreword, Nabokov explains. The first American edition was called "Conclusive Evidence," a tip toward...

Can the ending of an autobiography ever be the for-real ending? Of course not, because the author has kept living, at least long enough to write the book. Plus it's hard to go in not knowing that...

We're not going to lie to you: this book ain't easy. The beautiful but ornate language takes longer to read than your average chick lit or spy thriller, but it's worth it: Nabokov examines what it...

Most narrative novels roll this way, and that includes autobiographies. Small Russian Boy Comes to ConsciousnessVladimir Nabokov is born to a wealthy, politically active St. Petersburg, Russia fam...

We know that "Overcoming the Monster" might seem like a weird pick when it comes to this totally realist story, but bear with us! Anticipation Stage and 'Call'When the story opens, Vladimir is j...

Here's Vladimir's childhood and adolescence: he skates around relatively carefree with a carousel of tutors, relatives, and friends to spice things up. He begins his three major obsessions: butter...

Weirdly, the popular late-'80s/early-'90s sitcom "Perfect Strangers" had an episode called "Speak, Memory," when one character gets amnesia and must be re-taught everything in time for a visit from...

Nabokov may accuse (or brag about) his younger self of chasing girls, but mostly his head is wrapped up in trying to figure out the complicated choreography of being a young boy about to lose all s...

An [Outdated] Reading List for KidsRobin Hood (1.1.3)Little Red Riding Hood (1.1.3)Bertha von Suttner, Die Waffen Nieder (1.4.2) Foxy Grandpa (3.3.7) Buster Brown (3.3.7)Countess of Segur, Les Ma...