Revisiting Yesterdays: Childhood Memories and Other Recollections

Revisiting Yesterdays: Childhood Memories and Other Recollections This book is a leisurely journey back into the childhood memories of growing up in the.
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Rather, memory is a glorious grab bag of the past from which one can at leisure pluck bittersweet experiences of times gone by and relive them.

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Andrews University, May 3rd It was as if some silver chime had waked a chord in his memory. An American Lyric , Golden threads of imagination will always be found woven into the fabric of a human life, and it affords one of the sweetest pastimes to old age to sit down and slowly unravel them, recalling the hours when first they were spun. We have all done things that make us flinch.

You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things. James Whoever snatched my formerly reliable, sharp short-term memory: I'd like it back now, please. SunWolf, September 2nd tweet, professorsunwolf. Britton — , "Long Ago" Point is, you hardly remember the perfect things. But when perfect goes wrong, those are the memories that last forever. Mine'll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that's all, instead of a noose. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door. It is the medium of past experience, just as the earth is the medium in which dead cities lie buried.

He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging. Recalling days of happiness, I haunt my memories. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment — but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?

Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart. And what kind of douche decides that sleep is too plebeian? Would it have been so hard to come down with herpes and depression like everyone else? But first I need to make fun of Nabokov a bit more.

Six pages into his foreword, he tosses off this gag-inducing little metaphor: What irritates me about it is the self-complacency it implies: In one sense, though, the metaphor is well-chosen, because Nabokov really did view art as some kind of occult jiggery-pokery: I discovered in nature the non-utilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception. Or go play Wii. The fact is, the world is so immeasurably complex, and our perceptions are so deliriously rich that even the most exhaustive representation of one tiny patch of reality can only be a gross simplification — a thing of sticks and squiggles, daubed by a gifted chimpanzee.

Meaning, he comes as close to honouring the riotous profusion of experience as any human being is likely to get. I told you the panties would come off. View all 37 comments. Nov 08, Fionnuala added it Shelves: Nabokov is a joker. Very soon I have a couple of readymade paragraphs and only need to tidy them up here and there, add a suitable opening and closing lin Nabokov is a joker.

So, imagine my surprise yesterday when I got to the end of Speak, Memory and glanced at the Appendix. What have we here, I wondered - for about half a minute. All the wind has gone from my sails and an unsettled feeling of having been set up is creeping in. And then today I read this line in The Gift which I've just begun: The result of all these coincidences is that I no longer feel like commenting on the carefully chosen themes of this memoir, or pointing out the nice balance between the personal and the general, the planned and the accidental, in the teasing out of these memories.

Nor do I want to talk about the many interesting references to poetry and parks, chess and fate, art and nature, which fill the pages of Speak, Memory. I had a section on the various heteronyms Nabokov uses throughout his work but that too is now obsolete, as are the thoughts about his brother Sergey, and the strong and unsettling resemblance between Sergey and the nameless narrator of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.

Nabokov has checkmated me nicely But I'll get my own back soon. On page of The Gift , a character accuses the narrator, Godunov who resembles Nabokov more than a little , of being Let me tell you, my lad, you're quite a joker View all 31 comments. Feb 16, T for Tongue-tied rated it it was amazing Shelves: I closed the book and put it with tenderness on the shelf.

It was cold and windy but a sense of security, of summer warmth entered my heart. All the themes that gradually become us, starting in one place and ending up somewhere completely different There are no secrets in life, just hidden truths that I closed the book and put it with tenderness on the shelf.

There are no secrets in life, just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface. They reveal the spiral of the patterns and, through some intricate, unexplainable osmosis, are brought together to form the most remarkable story that shines with a timeless beauty, a kind of blinding revelation of the miracle of existence, akin to the ineffable light of a primordial deity. Nabokov plunges into depths of time and becomes tenderly aware of it.

Speak, Memory

His book is beautifully focused, it renews old ties that have been undone - despite the gaps, nothing is completely shut off, everything becomes an opening. His brain - this marvellous brain of nebulous depths - conjures up mystery and enchantment with every little memory. First fascinations, first loves. First poems written in the brief shock of wonder, in a fraction of time resembling not so much an aperture as a missed heartbeat. This book really is like our memory - incidental, unmotivated, fickle.

In memory of those who are gone View all 16 comments. There are parts of this memoir that I absolutely loved and there are parts, mostly later in the memoir and in Nabokov's life, that I found more difficult to embrace as a reader. The Everyman's Library Edition I read also has an excellent introduction by Brian Boyd which offers great insights into the book, especially for a reader like me who has no background in Nabokov.

To outline the task he had set before him, Nabokov writes in his Foreward "This re-Englishing of a Russian re-version of Finis! To outline the task he had set before him, Nabokov writes in his Foreward "This re-Englishing of a Russian re-version of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place, proved to be a diabolical task, but some consolation was given me by the thought that such multiple metamorphosis, familiar to butterflies, had not been tried by any human before.

Nabokov is a man between worlds, of a patrician background lost in the Russian Revolution, but he does not appear to live with regret. Instead he clings to the memories of the Russia he has loved, the Russia he knew as a much loved child, and provides wonderful descriptions of the sights and people of that world. In one descriptive passage of the arrival of a new tutor coming to the estate by sleigh in the winter, Nabokov's worlds collide.

How did I get here? Somehow the two sleighs have slipped away leaving behind a passportless spy standing on the blue-white road in his New England snowboots and stormcoat. The vibration in my ears is no longer their receding bells, but only my old blood singing. All is still, spellbound, enthralled by the moon, fancy's rear-vision mirror. The snow is real, though, and as I bend to it and scoop up a handful, sixty years crumble to glittering frost-dust between my fingers" pp There are many delightful sections in this overall wonderful memoir.

Memory Quotes, Sayings about Memories

At times it can become obscure and pedanticNabokov's language is not that of most authors I read. In the chapter dealing with his burgeoning fascination with butterflies, he states "I found the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. He gives little away here but there is a sense of loss. Some of the later chapters I found rougher going as VN travels in Europe and settles into a course of life.

Perhaps the emotional level was not the same? The emotion rushes back with the birth of his son Dimitri. All in all I enjoyed this memoir while recognizing I was in the presence of someone who does not think as I do, who creates and writes on a different plane with a use of English even as a second language that is far more extensive than mine. With that caveat, I recommend it to others who enjoy reading memoirs.

This is a strong 4 possibly a 5 but for a few chapters I found less compelling. Nov 28, Mariel rated it liked it Recommends it for: I want to be buried with a pocketful of clarity. Recommended to Mariel by: I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it. Although it lingered on in my mind, its personal warmth, its retrospective appeal had gone and, presently, it became more closely identified with my novel than with my former self, where it had seemed to be so safe from the intrusion of the artist.

Please disregard the three stars above. There is no dark lined s I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it. There is no dark lined silvery cloud rating system in my unguarded border between love and hate.

If you read quotes from Speak, Memory you will know that it has words of sublimity, knowing truth about beauty and art. Here is one that I have loved for years: But then, in a sense, all poetry is positional: The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer they are the better.

Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members. I have thought about that quote often the first part is often left off. I can't understand why. I know what he is talking about. I would think that I can't relate to this man who must've sprung from his mother's loving womb into a world opened to other worlds that could be imprinted on the insides of eyelids like the too perfect to be anything but miraculous mimicry of his camouflaged moths to flame. This was a perfect realization from Nabokov that I don't think I would have done on my own.

The smallest detail birthed just right on those wings I wonder how many beats per second they need to sustain, if their flight manages to beat the necessity and work. It couldn't have been only for survival. I will think of his beautiful prose like those moths that were making themselves more than what they merely had to be survive. I love that he saw them that way. I don't know how many reviews of his works I've read over the years that were almost too jealous to be admiring that he could write as he does in his second language.

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The truth is that he had three first languages. English wasn't my first language. Mine was a made-up secret twin language that I didn't give up until I was three. I hate language because I have to give it up to have new words. His are worlds at once, with portals.

If asked to explain the most basic English grammar like what is a noun or an adjective I could sweat like those times I panicked and couldn't remember my own ATM code or phone number. I admire and envy his visual ecstasy, where he wills to go. I love it, really. He did, however, hate music. In the most extreme emotional times he could tolerate the violin my reason for living and he hated the piano.

I could never make myself into what I feel for music the way that Nabokov does his pleasures in his words. It is his own language. I know what he is talking about, though. He is looking too. I can't go where he went but he wanted to go somewhere else too. So there were times when I absolutely hated reading this book. I squirmed in my seat as if I were the victim of multiple courses of Green Eggs and Ham.

Reading in all of my favorite reading places of my car, bed and empty bathtub I would feel at once desperate to be done already and dog-earing pages to my memory as if his beautiful words could be butterflies pinned to delicate pages. My private Mariel time was intruded upon with some of the most boring times I have had all year and that is saying something. I've consistently not explained myself very well. My twin also took me as expecting the person to take themselves with absolute truth, no attempts to make themselves look good, etc, denying understanding of how hard it would be to live with yourself if you gave up the constant wing beating.

I want a portal into their lives. I want to be allowed entry, to pass between their shoulders and have room for me, Mariel, where I would never be allowed anywhere else. I want to learn the same rhythms. That world must contain the others in their lives, the look extending beyond corner of their eyes. I could ideally step out without them and look at others. A lot of Speak, Memory is about servants in the Nabokov family. I liked his mother's former nurse who they give keys to a different food larder so that they won't starve to death and her feelings won't be hurt.

Did she ever think about being born a slave? I liked that he tried to save Mademoiselle from his own use of her in his fictional work by writing about his memories of her in this book. It is interesting that he felt he lost his own memories once they were given to fiction. But I couldn't get past this feeling of them as servants.

Maybe the fiction is more generous because it would give of yourself to the image of them in your mind. Who were they when they went home? Maybe they thought that young Vladimir was a nancy boy lolling about on a Turkish sofa to read War and Peace at the age of eleven I was reading The Silence of the Lambs when I was eleven. I couldn't help but think about the governess who was sent away for seemingly no reason my guess is that she had the young master help her search for the missing glove while he was consoled with hot chocolate and drawings.

I was reminded of reading Natasha's Dance a very good book about the cultural history of Russia I read earlier this year. Umm, reconciling Tolstoy's noble peasants with how much their lives must have truly sucked so hard, yeah? There came a point when I was bored to tears reading about how many thousands of servants coughs slaves coughs each nobleman had to their name.

I wanted very much to go on one of those hunts with Nabokov's beloved mum. I don't know, I was bothered by it all because it is so one-sided. I loved that he felt guilty about ditching his friend who biked all the way to their home because his recently bankrupted family couldn't afford the train fare to hunt for his butterflies in secret. But it's all about him and it is dull to force my brain edges into a one-sided affair. I kind of get it and Well, he was killing them to collect them in those books.

I find it curious that he didn't once mention any conflicting feelings about this aspect of his obsession. He does about his own memory and using it in writing, but not about the lives of these creatures. I had also read about this a long time before I read this book that he waits a long time to leave Nazi Germany even though his wife was Jewish. I guess this is why Kristen had suggested reading this memoir to prepare for Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter I might get pissed about proclamations of Sartre love and ignoring realities of abusing teenaged girls she had a position of power over, yeah.

I don't want to sound judgmental because that is not how I feel in my heart. Some of my pets are birds. It is something that I stab my mind with out of the dark at any time. I think if they could talk my dogs wouldn't tell the judge that they want to live with me instead of running wild tell that to the dog catcher, guys! Something the Nabokov family and my family have in common is the recurrence of dachshunds. I think they had twelve? My memory could be lying about this. Anyway, it was a lot.

Mine had eight altogether. I can imagine how it felt to find the longed for rare butterfly to add to his collection. He might have missed that longing and replaced it with another quest. My life needs something to long for and think about to slow down time and make it faster.

I know that Nabokov was like that. But my mind goes "But I wonder too much about what I killed to feed the fumbled love I invented for myself. What do they kill, in these memoirs? But what if they didn't want to be in a book? What if these people in his life didn't want to be in position to Vladimir Nabokov? I guess they could write their own memoirs, if they didn't die under Leninism.

I can't help but wonder why he wrote about this one tutor that much. It became like picking on someone behind their back He writes in his fiction and in Speak, Memory about the expatriates who miss their Scrooge McDuck luxuries to swim in. Nabokov misses his childhood.

He was the center of the world in his childhood. He didn't have to think about his father's foot stabbing political sympathies for revolutionaries. His mother got his synesthesia because she had it too although hers was for musical notes while he saw words in colors. I liked how he had only placed one of the rose pink colors to its living counterpart days before writing about it in his memoir.

I loved how he could still feel the handle of his son's pram. But what about the girls who would smiles appeared only as he was approaching and departing? I want to know how he looked to them. My memoir criteria may be impossible. I want to be let in and I don't want to have to make it for myself.

A moment later my first poem began. What touched it off? I think I know. Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent. Tip, leap, dip, relief- the instant it all took to happen seemed to me not so much a fraction of time as a fissure in it, a missed heartbeat, which was refunded at once by a patter of rhymes: I say "patter" intentionally, for when a gust of wind did come, the trees would briskly start to drip all together in as crude an imitation of the recent downpour as the stanza I was already muttering resembled the shock of wonder I had experienced when for a moment heart and leaf had been one.

Nabokov's poetry was my favorite part of Speak, Memory. How to write poetry is to be able to notice all kinds of things that are happening all at once, all at once. Janet Frame's beginnings as a poet was also my favorite about her memoir To the Is-Land. I love to know how others reach out. I want to reach out too. I want to be let in more than anything. I feel if I could be let in then maybe I could reach something that has always been denied me. Like when you try to remember something and you can't. View all 18 comments. Jul 19, Allycks rated it it was amazing Shelves: This is, in my opinion, Nabokov's best work.

The autobiography as a form suits Nabokov perfectly, as his novels are never so much about plot or 'big ideas,' just the intense poetic possibilities of language itself. So be forewarned, there is almost no useful information here. You may learn a thing or two about pre-Revolution Russia, a scrap of detail about his encounters with Joyce in Paris, or some tidbits about butterfly hunting, but really there's nothing to be learned, no story, no clues to This is, in my opinion, Nabokov's best work.

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You may learn a thing or two about pre-Revolution Russia, a scrap of detail about his encounters with Joyce in Paris, or some tidbits about butterfly hunting, but really there's nothing to be learned, no story, no clues to why he wrote 'Lolita' or whatever. What you get is the greatest prose artist of the 20th Century at his finest. Nabokov takes the mildly interesting raw material of his own life and transforms it into luminous art. Disgusting that a somebody could be such an amazing writer.

And this is a person born in Russia, writing in English! The word "genius" seems to come up a lot when people speak of Nabokov. Having read this, I now understand. It took me some time to become used to the way he writes. Nabokov often does not seem to care if his point is immediately clear to the reader. Some of the gems I found in this book I could just as easily have missed in a quicker read. So close attention is rewarded. Also rec Disgusting that a somebody could be such an amazing writer. Also recommended is a dictionary since his vocabulary is Knowledge of French does not hurt either possibly an offshoot of his indifference to making his point accessible are the many untranslated French sentences.

I found the discussion of his aristocratic pedigree a bit taxing at times, but he treats it all somewhat lightly so it is manageable. In all, I really could not ask for more from a book. His insights, observations, ideas voiced, etc Describing the writing does not do it any justice, so here are some examples of what I liked: Of the nothings he hears before falling asleep as a child "It is a neutral, detached, anonymous voice, which I catch saying words of no importance to me whatever - an English or a Russian sentence, not even addressed to me, and so trivial that I hardly dare give samples, lest the flatness I wish to convey be marred by a molehill of sense.

And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction. View all 5 comments. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. And the highest enjoyment of timelessness -- in a landscape selected at random -- is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants.

This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern -- to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal. View all 4 comments. Remember Those Evenings Reading tonight, he remembers those evenings, Walking together in the endless estates, Where the sun poured over shining green leaves.

Revisiting Yesterdays: Childhood Memories and Other Recollections

No hint of shades. Again in this room, with the screen-light hiding the night, Look back to those mountains where our walking sticks are hid; See him turn to the window, thinking his last Of faraway climes. Now nights come bringing only doubts, and the dead howl Of half-formed thoughts, in their windy dwelling Inside his mind, too full of easy Remember Those Evenings Reading tonight, he remembers those evenings, Walking together in the endless estates, Where the sun poured over shining green leaves.

Now nights come bringing only doubts, and the dead howl Of half-formed thoughts, in their windy dwelling Inside his mind, too full of easy questions; Such lonely roads. Oh, my long distance companion, my muse, remember: How we saw that sudden lighting of the valley; As we stood alone in the lonely darkening roads, watching As men went home. Remember all this, though no nearer each other. As the night is ending, and the dawn will bring Dreams and sleep for some, but no peace to me; Only more dread reading.

View all 11 comments. Jan 05, Mikimbizii rated it it was amazing Shelves: Sometimes a book just happens to you, it finds you, popping up from an exhibition that you almost didn't go to, from a dusty corner of a college library or a tiny book shop. The flirting is momentary, you know this is the real thing; there is no hesitation.

You take it home, its love at first sight "and ever and ever sight". Suddenly all your life so far seem so mundane and banal, a new world of tender mellowness opens - you assimilate it, drown and resurrect in it, live its sublimity, you bec Sometimes a book just happens to you, it finds you, popping up from an exhibition that you almost didn't go to, from a dusty corner of a college library or a tiny book shop.

Suddenly all your life so far seem so mundane and banal, a new world of tender mellowness opens - you assimilate it, drown and resurrect in it, live its sublimity, you become the book. Curled up, sprawled over a bed, by the window, under a sheet in torch light, you meet; the book and you. Every time a guest drops in, or you have to leave for work, you swear horribly, because all you want to do is be with it, to be locked in an eternal read with it, a passion that you have never felt for anything else, anyone else.

It seems as though you were waiting all your life for this moment, this juncture, this awakening, it is the beginning of a new journey. You realise you can still be happy reading and rereading only this one book for the rest of your life. In love with you, Nabokov for Speak, Memory for the universe you showed me, for Ada, for that ardor. View all 7 comments. Nov 21, Manny rated it really liked it. One of the greatest literary autobiographies ever - a model for how to do it. Just a crisp layer of ice on the top, that he broke with his toothbrush This is a beautifully evocative memoir, consisting of the personal recollections of Nabakov, recalling his childhood in Imperial Russia.

Nabakov was born in to a family who were not only members of the aristocracy, but heavily involved in politics. His father was a liberal, who opposed the Tsar and, in fact, as his grandmother wryly pointed out, was working to bring down the way of life which would eventually see him exiled and virtually penniless… However, this is certainly not a memoir fi This is a beautifully evocative memoir, consisting of the personal recollections of Nabakov, recalling his childhood in Imperial Russia.

His father was a liberal, who opposed the Tsar and, in fact, as his grandmother wryly pointed out, was working to bring down the way of life which would eventually see him exiled and virtually penniless… However, this is certainly not a memoir filled with sorrow or bitterness. There is the horror of hearing his father might have died in a duel, the joy of butterfly collecting - always a passion throughout his life — his early attempts at writing poetry and his final leaving of Russia after the revolution.

Mostly, though, what we get are little snippets — beautifully written — of a world that has long gone, but which can see through the eyes of our narrator. Places, people, a way of life long since vanished, are recreated. You can almost feel the cold on carriage drives through the snow, or imagine walks in the countryside, so vivid are the descriptions. As such, it is almost not what is written, but how it is written, that is important here. The eye for detail; of the memory of a room, books on a shelf, or how it felt to wake in the morning, is what makes the book come alive.

I think it is an important memoir and one which paints a portrait of a certain era and way of life which the author obviously missed, but recalled with love. Sono stato cattivo nei suoi confronti. L'ho iniziato verso la fine dello scorso anno scolastico, poi l'ho ripreso verso la fine di questo e infine oggi l'ho concluso. Tuttavia la sua pesantezza lo rende una lettura di nicchia, un pezzo da collezione. Non ho letto nient'altro di Nabokov, nemmeno la celebre Lolita che ho comunque acquistato tempo fa.

Vorrei cominciare con questo lungo passo: Ho conosciuto persone che, dopo aver sfiorato senza volerlo qualche cosa - lo stipite di una porta, una parete -, erano costrette a passare attraverso tutta una serie rapidissima e sistematica di contatti manuali con varie superfici della stanza prima di tornare a un'esistenza equilibrata. Niente da fare; devo sapere dove mi trovo, devo sapere dove siete voi, tu e mio figlio.

Una Russia che lo costringe a fuggire e a passare vent'anni in esilio nell'Europa Occidentale stabilendosi in seguito in America. Ci parla della Russia della sua infanzia, arricchendola di particolari. La sua caccia alle farfalle, l'amore per queste creature, le vite delle persone della sua famiglia, il suo primo amore, la sua istruzione, i suoi precettori e il rapporto con suo padre. Ci sono miliardi di dettagli e di voli stilistici meravigliosi, nelle pagine di questa autobiografia. Un gioiello, intimo, personale e profondamente russo come nient'altro al mondo.

E Nabokov lo sottolinea bene. Lui che "datemi qualsiasi cosa, su un qualsiasi continente che assomigli alla campagna pietroburghese, e il mio cuore si scioglie". Lui ama questa Russia magica della sua giovinezza, la Russia nei cui boschi, d'estate, portava la sua prima ragazza.


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Tra i luoghi silvani dove facevano l'amore, di nascosto. In un viottolo tra i campi, all'incrocio con la desolata strada maestra, io scendevo dalla bicicletta e l'appoggiavo a un palo del telegrafo. Un tramonto quasi terribile nel suo splendore indugiava in un cielo senza limiti. Tra gli ammassi che mutavano in modo impercettibile si riusciva a cogliere dettagli strutturali vivacemente colorati di organismi celesti, o fessure luminose in cumuli oscuri, o piatte spiagge eteree che parevano miraggi di isole deserte.

Un'ombra colossale cominciava a invadere i campi, e nella quiete assoluta i pali telegrafici ronzavano, e quei bruchi che si nutrono di notte scalavano il gambo della pianta prescelta. Zina e Colette, le mie compagne di giochi sulla spiaggia; la saltellante Louise; tutte quelle ragazzine alle feste, accese in volto, la fascia della cintura bassa sui fianchi, i capelli di seta; la languida contessa G. Vorrei vedere con gli occhi di Nabokov i luoghi della sua infanzia, i buffi personaggi che la affollano, gli insegnanti che ha avuto, i suoi parenti e i suoi fratelli.

Il Nabokov ventenne non si rese subito conto che quello sarebbe stato un addio definitivo. Come quando dice che le lettere di Tamara, la ragazza della sua estate russa, sarebbero continuate ad arrivare in Crimea dove si era inizialmente rifugiato con la famiglia dopo la fuga da San Pietroburgo al suo indirizzo.

L'amore per i suoi ricordi.


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Probably one of my favorite autobiographies to date beaten only perhaps by the Education of Henry Adams. Realistically, it is 4. Other chapters were just as good, and only a couple were less than what I hoped. It is interesting to think of Nabokov writing these in English in Massachusetts from his Russian memories and then translating them in the s back into Russian and then using the Russian version to edit a new edition in The human mind, with all its varieties, is an phenomenal thing Jan 22, Clarissa Olivarez rated it liked it.

I just prefer his fiction. I admit that Nabokov's "poetic prose" really shines through, at certain times; however, on the whole, I found the narrative voice to be frustrating, pompous, and oppressive. May 21, Auguste rated it it was amazing. How wrong Nabokov was in claiming that the music gene had skipped him! His prose is nothing if not music. Many years ago, I had read about half of Lolita before putting it down. Nevertheless, I have not read any Nabokov since then, and everyone seems to be personally insulted by this omission. What is it that inspires Nabokov fans to froth at the mouth so violently when it comes to this topic?

I have now re-read Lolita, and my review can be found here I was promised that this book will let me into the secret Many years ago, I had read about half of Lolita before putting it down. I have now re-read Lolita, and my review can be found here I was promised that this book will let me into the secret.

So I feel like even though 3. In a way, I can totally see why people love him so much. It is hard not to be floored by the considerable talents of this prose. The sentences, at their best, are indeed delicious. Nabokov seems to me all about the sensual enjoyment of language, within a certain framework of description: Closed inside shutters, a lighted candle, Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, something-something little child, the child kneeling on the pillow that presently would engulf his humming head.

In fact, he has little interest in either, and when he attempts them, it often has the scent of obvious melodramatic effort to it, like bad poetry: The snow is real, though, and as I bend to it and scoop up a handful, sixty years crumble to glittering frost-dust between my fingers. But his is almost the opposite of another sentence-master: It can be beautiful or ugly, long or short, totally taking you off guard with its uncompromising and singular vision. Nabokov is never cruel enough in his economy, his flourishes take too long, and by the time he lands that final punch, it feels overdone, like a rubbery egg.

Yes, beautiful, but heavy with labor, dripping with intention. Perhaps it is unfair to compare him to Beckett, who afterall, has no aesthetic similarities to Nabokov. Maybe Flaubert, then, whose sentences are also beautiful in a certain traditional way, but whose economy and clarity constantly stuns and surprises with layer upon layer of psychological subtlety and humor.

Clearly painstaking effort was put in the writing, and yet this effort is also hidden from the reader, so that it looks easy Or maybe we should bring in someone who is equally enamoured by the beauty and playful potential of language, someone like Wallace Stevens, whose words have a certain surface sheen, yet hold so many more implications beneath their enticing veneers, so much philosophical depth.

When he tries to do more, it is very hit and miss. He is like one of those guitar virtuosos getting carried away by their own flashy fingerwork, capable and impressive, but rarely are their technical skills used with the kind of artistic restraint that creates truly great songs.

Of course, I am only basing this on this one book alone, so upon further reading, revisions may be in order. That said, there were many memorable moments in this book. Chapter 5 was also great, about Mademoiselle. Chapter 14, about emigrant life, and chess puzzles, and where the stylization seemed less pronounced, was also interesting.

Most of the book concerns itself with the many tutors, servants and other people who worked for and revolved around his aristocratic family; his interest in butterflies, writing poems, and wooing girls comes up later. Then social upheaval and fleeing the country. I found his voice a bit snobby and egotistical at times, which was also a turn-off. But most of the book was enjoyable enough, though nowhere near the heights they reached in my hype-induced imagination. View all 6 comments. Nov 03, K.