Speak, Memory
An Autobiography Revisited
Penguin Classics
Paperback
: 26 Oct 2000
£12.00
Synopsis
'Speak, memory' said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on and of grand old houses in St Petersburg and the surrounding countryside in pre-revolutionary Russia. Young love, butterflies, tutors and a multitude of other themes thread together to weave an autobiography which is itself a work of art.
This Penguin Modern Classic edition contains an appendix, 'Chapter sixteen', a pseudo-review written by Nabokov in 1950 but only now published for the first time in paperback.
Reviews
Customer Review: 11 September 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Ireland
On the plus side it (naturally) contains some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read. The seamless flow from concrete detail, scrupulous description, misty nostalgia to philosophical speculation is dizzying and inspired.
» Submit a reviewCritic Review:
‘Vibrant, vigorous, a celebration not just of language but also of an unquenchable vision’ Penelope Lively, Daily Telegraph