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Speak, Memory
Nabokov's Speak, Memory: Reading the Chapters
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Chapter 2 On the pages in which Nabokov speaks of the "praedormitary visions" of childhood, there is a bit of language to send you to a dictionary, "muscae volitantes" and "vitreous humor" which lead into
"...nearer to the hypnagogic mirages I am thinking of is the colored spot, the stab of an afterimage, with which the lamp one has just turned off wounds the palpebral night."Afterwards, the autobiographer gives a lot of this chapter to his mother, who enjoys quests to collect various kinds of edible mushrooms and who all her life favors dachshunds. At Vyra, his mother's family estate, there is a peek into that enormous household of servants and governesses to the Nabokovs. In the 1930s, he lives apart from his aging mother, whose former aristocratic privilege and wealth differ from her small lodgings in Prague on a pension.
Chapter 3Nabokov recollects the coat of arms then traces his family from its apparent beginning in 1380 by Nabok Murza, a Tatar prince, telling vignettes about the adventures of some of his Nabokov-Korff forebears. The map proves useful to locate three estates of theirs to the south of St Petersburg by the Oredezh River. The tumultuous change of government from tsar to bolshevik/communist in 1917 nationalized wealth and property, bringing about loss and exile for Nabokov, whose received legacy had been a two-thousand-acre-estate and millions of dollars from Uncle Ruka. Besides the material legacy from him, Nabokov recalls the palimpsestic reading of his uncle's volumes of children's stories with the similar moans and other reactions of his uncle.
"...I not only go through the same agony and delight that my uncle did, but have to cope with an additional burden--the recollection I have of him, reliving his childhood with the help of those very books. I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue rose of the wallpaper, the open window. Its reflection fills the oval mirror above the leathern couch where my uncle sits, gloating over a tattered book. A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die."At their Russian home, the "Frenchified" Nabokovs speak French, and some of them traveled great distances over the globe.
Chapter 4 At home, Nabokov had early learned English even before the French and
Russian. The family used many English products from Pears soap to collapsible rubber bathtubs. Vladimir's night-time storybooks were read to him in English. He imaginatively tells of his bedtime and morning routines, then gives tidbits about each of his many governesses and tutors.
I am struck by Nabakov's sense of humor that creeps in frequently. I'm in chapter 4 now and just read a brief mention of the loss of his caterpillars. He reports that one of the estate men told him that they had left and hung themselves. Then he describes each of his governesses in a short phrase. What a witty man. I would like to have met him, though I likely would have felt intimidated unless he was as personable as he sounds in this book.I love the brief Part 5, Chapter 3.
Sue, That part probably is where I also am. Interesting details about the traits of Mademoiselle. I was just reading some of Martin Amis's "Experience: A Memoir" in which Amis quotes a passage about suicide in Part II Chapter 1 Delilah Seale attributed to Nabokov's The Eye. In fact, I have noted that "Speak, Memory" and "Experience: A Memoir" often are cited in the same sentence as complementary to each other. That statement could do for an elaboration!
About chapter 3, part 5, I liked his stepping out of the memoir to speak about very specific concerns. Taking a "time out" as it were. Then after dealing with this issue, he steps back into the persona and style he is using for the memoir.The specifics relate to others assuming they know how Nabakov feels about Russia and the past.
A delight in the way Nabokov uses language to convey the imagination of children in playtime and to observe the world of adults. Love the scene in which the group of peasants express approval of Nabokov's father by bouncing him into the air.