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dogmatix

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    Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion)

    in General Fiction

    Posted

    His childhood is a precious jewel, isn't it?

     

    I'd like to talk a little bit about Mademoiselle and Switzerland. I just finished up chapter five (1st read - I'll reread tonight). Am I reading his distaste for Switzerland correctly? Am I missing something here?

     

    Oh by the way I love how he finishes up the chapter with a comment on memories and how age and history can completely remodel them:

     

    "Huddled together in a constant seething of competitive reminiscences, they formed a small island in an environment that had grown alien to them....One is always at home in one's past, which partly explains those pathetic ladie's posthumous love for a remote and, to be perfectly frank, rather appalling country, which they never had really known and in which none of them had been very content.

     

     

    Talking nature Pontalba; how about the description o the swan near the end of the chapter? So poignant.

    Foreign food

    in Food, Cooking & Recipes

    Posted

    I just don't think I could eat a heart Galactic, I do love sage and onion with meat though.

     

    I think the weirdest thing I've ever eaten was sea urchin. I do love foreign food (foreing to the US that is). Thai, Mexican, South African, Japanese (as long as it's not moving on my plate), South American, and definitely Middle Eastern.

     

     

    I was a very strict vgetarian for about 11 years or so and that really helped to open my horizons to new foods and ethnicities.

     

    What brought my vegetarianism to a crashing halt: A damn hot dog:motz: . Are those really meat....?

    Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion)

    in General Fiction

    Posted

    I can't place where it is right now, but there is a similar scene with his mother when they are in St. Petersburg, and she is shopping for something for him.

    Oh! I just found it...p.37, when he was ill, he pictured her buying a pencil, but in his mind it was an ordinary pencil, when it was the four foot pencil in the window of Treumann's.

    Now that was a neat trick.....:D

     

    Loved that. Particularly liked that he felt the need to drill into the pencil to see if the lead went all the way. I soooo would have done that!

    Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion)

    in General Fiction

    Posted

    You know dogmatix, after this you must read Vera by Stacy Schiff, it is Vera's bio, but Vladimir is always with her, so it's the same difference, but a different perspective. Plus of course, it continues to his death and afterward as Vera outlived him by 15 years.

    Perhaps I will;) but right now I'm getting excited about Russian history so I'll be reading Ten Days..... and re-reading Nicholas and Alexandria.

     

    Then there's the BOTM, Frankenstein and I promised Sophia I'd read Seeing and then there's......... well you get the idea:lol:

    Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion)

    in General Fiction

    Posted

    One passage that I enjoyed is his description of Mademoiselle's arrival. He's speaking of creating a memory from a non-experience. To do this he describes himself as an invisible spy present at her arrival, since in actuality he was not there at the station nor in the carriage. It's a beautiful descriptive passage and without his admission of creative license it is indistinguishable from his "true" memory

    Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion)

    in General Fiction

    Posted

    So basically I've settled into rereading each chapter as I go. Just finished up with chapter 4 X 2.

     

    Nabokov's relatives; how interesting to have so many important relatives at such a crucial time in world history. I learned all about Puskin today. I also bought a new dictionary:mrgreen:

     

    Nabokov takes pains to explain the exact origin of his ideas, a color, a sound, a piece of furniture, a dog and I loved his explaination of the loss of or dilution of those memories as he assignes them to the characters in his books. So wonderful.

     

    This has been touched on before but it just goes to show that you don't need to have a terribly painful and dysfuntional childhood to be inspired to write about it.

    Coconut

    in Food, Cooking & Recipes

    Posted

    I hope you are not suggesting they got here via a swallow :D

     

    Oh an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point.

     

    Yes, but African swallows are non-migratory.

     

    Ah yes.

     

    Look supposing two swalows were to carry it together?

    Everything Wine

    in Food, Cooking & Recipes

    Posted

    Vinha Do Monte

     

    Thanks for the delicious sounding recommendation Sofia. A Portugese red; I mean COULD it get any better? I'll be checking for this one at Total Wine tommorrow.

     

    By the way I gave several bottles of the Vinho Verde as gifts to my docs last week. They were much appreciated.

    Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion)

    in General Fiction

    Posted

    I'll check out your link, I'm on Wikki right now. I did manage to get a nice timeline jammed into my brain and an idea about who the Bolsheviks were and the relationship betwen Stalin/Lenin and the fall of the Tsars. Great stuff! I may need to reread Nicholas ad Alexandria again one of these days, and then there's The Communist Manifesto, and some nice biographies........ Whew, what a can of worms you've opened Pontalba.

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