Speak, Memory in Nabokov in Three Years

Feb 12, 2008 Inderjit Sanghera rated it it was amazing

‘Speak Memory’ is the second edition of Nabokov’s autobiography, which he initially titled ‘Conclusive Evidence’: a mundane, banal and academic title for a book of such effervescent poetry. Nabokov’s original suggestion of Speak Mnemosyne does the poetry of Nabokov’s prose more justice, however it was deemed unpronounceable and thus unsellable by Nabokov’s publishers. This little snippet of information in many ways sums up Nabokov’s art; Nabokov’s works deal with the quiddity and innate richness ‘Speak Memory’ is the second edition of Nabokov’s autobiography, which he initially titled ‘Conclusive Evidence’: a mundane, banal and academic title for a book of such effervescent poetry. Nabokov’s original suggestion of Speak Mnemosyne does the poetry of Nabokov’s prose more justice, however it was deemed unpronounceable and thus unsellable by Nabokov’s publishers. This little snippet of information in many ways sums up Nabokov’s art; Nabokov’s works deal with the quiddity and innate richness of human existence, the miracle of consciousness and the delirious and deleterious pangs of love, yet for most people, whose palates have been desensitized by the baleful bromides of conventional literature, art and media, Nabokov’s unconventionality renders his poetry unpalatable. The iridesces of a rainbow on a shore-line, the spread of a butterfly’s wings on a morning sparkling with splendorous sunshine, these are the jewels which Nabokov has ensconced within his work, which the careful reader will need dig out; a turn of phrase here, a solecism there, until the reader’s vision is “Nabokovized”, the sun is no longer just yellow, but orange, amber and all sorts of other harlequin colours and in which the simple fall of rain is describe as;

“The rain, which had been a mass of violently descending water wherein the trees writhed and rolled, was reduced all at once to oblique lines of silent gold breaking into short and long dashes against a background of subsiding vegetable agitation. Gulfs of voluptuous blue were expanding between great clouds-heap upon heap of pure white and purplish gray…”

Nabokov recalls being taught painting by a famous landscape painter, who in later years remarked in Nabokov’s singular lack of talent-in many ways Nabokov’s painterly prose makes up this, as he is, with words, able to give full justice to his vibrant vision of the world in a way that he never could with paint and brush. Nabokov grew up within an intellectually and artistically Russian aristocrat family and the vast and luscious grounds of his family estate developed his keen love of nature, of the brooks, meadows, trees and forests which made up his estate. Not that there was anything especially beautiful about his family estate, it is moreso the case the Nabokov was able to beautify even the most quotidian things, as he world around him shimmers with the splendours of his unimaginable vision;

“I remember one particular sunset. It lent an ember to my bicycle bell. Overhead, above the black music of the telegraph wires, a number of long, dark-violet clouds lined with flamingo pink hug motionless in a fan-shaped arrangement: the whole thing was like some prodigious ovation in terms of colour and form!”
“And let me not leave out the moon-for surely there must be a moon, the full, incredibly clear disc that goes so well with lusty Russian frosts. So there it comes, steering out a flock of small dappled clouds, which it tinges with a vague iridescence; and, as it sails higher, it grazes the runner tracks left on the road, where every sparkling lump of snow is emphasized by a swollen shadow.”

Linked to Nabokov’s love of nature is his interest in lepidoptera and his love for butterflies and their influence on his art. Aside from the very personal pleasures Nabokov gained from hunting butterflies, their sense of mimicry, the multifarity of colours they exuded and their metamorphosis from a commonplace caterpillar to a bewitching butterfly are essential to understanding his works, as Nabokov states; “I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception.” Just like a butterfly emerging effulgently out of its chrysalis, so too human perception can emerge outside of the dark cocoon which envelops our minds, if were to only take a moment and observe the endless wonders of life and the world around us; nature and literature are two of the ways in which we can appreciate the beauty of the world, however one can just as easily find meaning in life via love for the people around us.

Nabokov had a deliriously happy childhood under his liberal parents, his father a stoic yet sensitive statesman, with a passion for politics, nature and art (Nabokov inherited the latter two), and Nabokov is able to brilliantly bring about the innate moral strength of his father. Yet his descriptions of his father are tinged with a hint of tragedy at his untimely (and accidental) assassination at the hands of a Soviet gunman-Nabokov had a similarly close relationship to his mother and reading ‘Speak, Memory’ the reader begins to understand his dislike of Freud, with his distasteful theories of sexuality in childhood (for Nabokov the most magical period in a person’s life) and its desire to homogenize the experience of each individual human being so that it fitted in with the fantastical fantasies of a neurotic. Despite the sadness which tinges Nabokov’s recollections to his father, he won’t let fate or the assassins’ bullet interfere with his father’s brilliance. One of the most wonderful passages in the book is the description of his father as is being thrown in the air as part of a peasant ritual;
“From my place at table I would suddenly see through one of the west windows a marvelous case of levitation. There, for an instant, the figure of my father in his windrippled white summer suit would be displayed, gloriously sprawling in midair, his limbs in a curiously casual attitude, his handsome, imperturbable features turned to the sky. Thrice, to the mighty heave-ho of his invisible tossers, he would fly up in this fashion, and the second time he would go higher than the first and then there he would be, on his last and loftiest flight, reclining, as if for good, against the cobalt blue of the summer noon, like one of those paradisiac personages who comfortably soar, with such a wealth of folds in their garments, on the vaulted ceiling of a church while below, one by one, the wax tapers in mortal hands light up to make a swarm of minute flames in the mist of incense, and the priest chants of eternal repose, and funeral lilies conceal the face of whoever lies there, among the swimming lights, in the open coffin”

Nabokov’s quest is to bring to life the people or places we loved via our memory of them. Nabokov distrusted concepts of linear time-for Nabokov time worked far more flexibly than that and the key to unlocking the straitjacket of linear time was via memory.

“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.”

Memory is intrinsic to us understanding the world around us, to remembering the places or people who pierced our hearts with love, to overcoming the innumerable tragedies of life and to igniting the conflagration of consciousness and giving meaning to the universe;

“How small the cosmos (a kangaroo’s patch would hold it!) how paltry and puny in comparison to human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words!”
...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Apr 13, 2014 Publius rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-star-books, non-fiction, nabokov, american

“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" And thus, perhaps the greatest literary (auto)biography of all-time begins with one of the most inspirational sentences of all-time. Nabokov writes this book almost like a novel with dazzling prose and in a story-like fashion. Nabokov seems to share many coincidences with some of his protagonists (Ganin in Mary , Martin Edelweiss in Glory in partic ...more

3 likes · Like · see review