Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory (Discussion) [Archive]

pontalba

22nd September 2006, 00:43

Dogmatix,
Its true what you have said about Lolita, but Speak, Memory is fairly straight forward compared to Lolita. Nabokov is not ambiguous here as in his novels. The prose is beautiful...my signature line here is the first line of Speak, Memory.
In my review, when I spoke of his not sharing his entire relationships with his family with his reader, I meant that, not ambiguity.
Nabokov was, in spite of using his life and surroundings in his novels, an intensely private person, and only went to a point in sharing same.

There is a section near the beginning that he goes into some history of his family that, for some is hard to get through, but it all has its place in the biography, and is necessary. All in all, if you enjoyed the structure and prose in Lolita this is a safe bet. :)

Plus hand-holding is always available. :mrgreen:

dogmatix

22nd September 2006, 01:52

Okay I'll get a copy, maybe muggle will too and we can have our own little reading group :)

Sofia

22nd September 2006, 02:21

I knew it was only a matter of time :mrgreen: :wink:

pontalba

22nd September 2006, 02:21

8-) Sounds like a good plan to me. :D

Muggle?
Anyone else?

muggle not

22nd September 2006, 14:15

Okay I'll get a copy, maybe muggle will too and we can have our own little reading group :)
Shoot, I thought we were going to hold hands....and maybe sip a little wine. :D

8-) Sounds like a good plan to me. :D
Muggle?
Anyone else?
Ok, I will put a hold on the book at the library. You all must give me a head start though since I am such a slow reader.
It would be nice if a few others on the forum joined in. 8-)

I am having second thoughts. I intend on reading the book but I don't think it is such a good idea to give the impression of it being a reading group. There already is a Reading Circle and would not want to give the impression of "going-off-on-our-own" circle.

Michelle

22nd September 2006, 16:04

This has been moved to a new thread.. let the discussions begin... :)

pontalba

22nd September 2006, 16:08

Michelle,
What happened to the other posts in the thread?

I don't think anyone else has read it as of yet.

Michelle

22nd September 2006, 16:16

A few got deleted, to tidy things up a little.. I'm pretty sure there was nothing important...?

muggle not

22nd September 2006, 20:41

Everything looks fine to me. I checked out a copy of the Nabokov - Speak Memory book at the library this afternoon. I doubt that I will be able to start much reading soon though as next week is pretty busy with getting "house move" stuff done plus I have an appt at the hospital Monday morning.

Thanks Michelle. :D

dogmatix

22nd September 2006, 21:20

I'm in but I also need about 1 1/2 weeks I'm finishing Jonathan Strange and I want to read The Decapitated Chicken (Horatio Quioga) and a very short chidren's book first. I'll place my One Click with Amazon this weekend.

Paul

22nd September 2006, 23:56

Didn't get lost in the shuffle. YAY.
I'm still in. Will get started after the weekend.

pontalba

23rd September 2006, 01:38

Muggle,
I wondered if you'd moved yet or not. LOL I've said the next move I make all I'll bring are the books, computer and bed. Period. Everything else, Garage Sale!
And don't go and short out all the machinery at that hospital! :lol:

Dogmatix,
Good. I have to refresh my memory anyhow, its been a few months since I finished it.

Paul,
Glad you checked in again.

I thought maybe we could concentrate on a chapter at the time. Just to consider, and keep it straight. If anyone has any other/different ideas on a method go ahead and post it. OK? :D

And, er....Sophiaaaaaa...........h-e-l-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-oooooo 8-)

muggle not

23rd September 2006, 02:13

no, haven't moved yet. The buyer is having our house put through an inspection next Thursday, a 3 hr thing. Next Wednesday we are driving to NC to meet with the builder and cabinet maker of the house we are buying.....we have serious problems with the cabinets. Seems like we are constantly busy with related things to the sale and buying of the houses...headaches.

Michelle

23rd September 2006, 07:53

The thread won't go anywhere, so it doesn't matter if no one has it yet. :)

I used to have an afiliate link for Amazon US, but it never got used. Unfortunately they keep it seperate from my UK account, so I doubt I'd ever make the minimum payout anyway! :roll:

Paul

25th September 2006, 11:41

Well, bright and early, day one of the new week, and page 1 para 1 of Speak Memory. Page 1, that is, of the Introduction to the 1999 Hardcover Everyman Edition, which is something I don't ordinarily read, but it turns out the Introduction is interesting. For a freebie we get Boyd's opinion of Nabokov's four best novels out of all those he wrote: The Gift, Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada. I had often wondered. And we also find Boyd saying that Speak Memory is the "most artistic" of the famous autobiographies that have been written and a masterpiece fully equivalent to those four great novels. He restrains himself from calling it "the best" autobiography ever written only because, with admirable restraint, he recognizes that "best" can be very much a matter of personal opinion and how one looks at things. A different critic did, however, call Speak Memory "her book of the century." So it sounds like a truly momentous book in front of us
A little later on, Boyd discusses how the book is arrayed into more or less chronological individual chapters on separate topics, but that the narration will not be chronological. Instead the narration will flow back and forth in time as Nabokov's and our own memories do, so it sounds like we will be reading something not only momentous but also having a fascinating style.
And then, almost as a reward for reading the Introduction, something I usually skip as boring, there is an excerpted description in Nabokov's own words of his own Frst Love, which we will get to later in the book. A wonderful early treat!
I now see that, unfortunately, the Vintage Edition does not have Boyd's Introduction, so perhaps I can continue to include exceprts as we go along, if not everyone has the hardcover.
It sounds like an absorbing story of Nabokov's life ahead.

pontalba

25th September 2006, 14:54

Oh!, Now I want to buy that version! As though I needed to buy another book! 8-) :roll: I only have the Vintage edition with the foreword by Nabokov himself.
It sounds wonderful! But Brian Boyd is so marvelous for...I don't want to say "interpreting" Nabokov...but it almost amounts to the same thing. Anyone that is interested in learning more about VN would do well to find copies of Vladimir Nabokov, The Russian Years and Vladimir Nabokov, The American Years. Each one chronicles Nabokov's life, but obviously the two major sections of that life. Plus Boyd gives details of Nabokov's writing of his novels, the difficulties of selling same, and results of publicity both personally and professionally. All of this was written with Nabokov's approval and help. I have both books, and while if you buy the first copy you come across, they are expensive, but be patient, and Powell's every so often has a wonderful sale copy. Trade paperback.

Now VN says in the foreword: The present work is a systematically correlated assemblage of personal recollections ranging geographically from St. Petersburg to St. Nazaire, and covering thirty-seven years, from August 1903 to May 1940, with only a few sallies into later space-time.
I like the bit about "geographically" arranged. And in a way it is systematic, but systematic implies sterile order (to me at any rate) and there is nothing sterile about this autobiography.
Now everyone has heard of St. Petersburg, but I at least had not heard of St. Nazaire, so that was a sort of mysterious and romantic place to end up, how did he end up
there? We'll see.

muggle not

25th September 2006, 16:19

I have the Vintage International Edition dated 1989. It is from the library which brings up a problem. I will have to return the book probably while the discussion is going on and will not be able to refer to the book.

Oh yeah, another potential problem. What if I don't like the book. :D

pontalba

25th September 2006, 16:23

Paul

25th September 2006, 19:06

No renewals allowed by your meanie old librarian? :?
Sounds like I better get to chapter one in a hurry then.
Or else you alls just plow on ahead, and I'll follow along.

pontalba

25th September 2006, 23:28

I so love the way that right off the bat VN brings out his undying hatred for all things Freud.
I have ransacked my oldest dreams for keys and clues--and let me say at once that I reject completely the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world of Freud, with its crankish quest for sexual symbols (something like searching for Baconian acrostics in Shakespeare's works) and its bitter little embroys spying, from their natural nooks, upon the love life of their parents.
Ouch!
Nabokov loves to bring things to a complete circle, as on p.27 the matches. Nabokov connects incident when he was a child still in St. Petersburg...a General Kuropatkin made an amusing game with matches (not lit :roll: ) to a time 15 years later when VN's father was fleeing Russia and he happened to meet the General who asked him for a light. The matches. The magic ones shown that disappeared as a child, and the armies of the General that disappeared as well. Nabokov says this about it. The following of such thematic designs through one's life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography.
And that is exactly what VN does in his autobiography.

Paul

26th September 2006, 01:16

Wow, Pontalba!
Not there yet, but what a quote -- the final one! That certainly suggests that he was a very deep thinker about life, and a very astute observer to remember and notice such connections. :shock:

Boyd in the Introduction puts it this way:
In his novels, Nabokov ... can have all the freedom his formidable imagination allows to invent incidents, characters, names, relationships ..... But in his meticulously accurate autobiography, Nabokov can draw only on facts, memories and reflections, on his powers of selection and expression. He has been rated the finest stylist of our times, and in Speak, Memory more than in any other of his works, he has to rely on sheer style.

It looks like you found a perfect example of that. And it is factual not imaginary!

pontalba

26th September 2006, 03:37

The thing I appreciated about the circular bit was that it seems to me that life is like that in general...it (life) seems to have a symmetrical balance to it, and Nabokov is able to express that in the most beautiful way. But all of his books are like that. At least the ones that I have read balance out in the end. Not always to one's liking, but balance all the same.

Paul

26th September 2006, 09:31

... all of his books are like that. At least the ones that I have read balance out in the end. Not always to one's liking, but balance all the same.
Pontalba,
That really sounds like a thought I'll remember!
But meanwhile I'm still trying to make the time to get into the front of this one. Today it shall happen!
I hope muggle_not is someplace ahead of me in the reading? /listens for echo :) /

pontalba

26th September 2006, 14:48

Something I appreciated about Speak, Memory was the way Nabokov brought out his love for his family without exposing everything private about them. He manages to give wonderfully detailed images, but not invade their privacy. Of course VN was such a private person himself, so of course would be protective of The Family privacy.
But by the end of the book, the reader has a very good picture of VN and his family.

muggle not

26th September 2006, 16:55

Keep posting y'all. I am through the intro and about a dozen pages into the book. I do enjoy reading the posts even though I am not up to speed.

Paul

26th September 2006, 19:11

Hi muggle not!
A dozen pages in still puts you ahead of me by about a dozen pages! /groan/
But I hope it means that the housing problems you mentioned earlier have gone away, so that now you have time for reading and relaxing. Every time I have moved, everything has been up in the air forever after it seemed.

pontalba

26th September 2006, 19:56

I read Speak, Memory a few months back, but you know how it is, the details fade as time goes on, so I am rereading, or rescanning at any rate. One of the things I think most people don't realize about Nabokov is the fact that he actually could read and write English before his native Russian. That fact has gotten lost, and everyone marvels at his beautiful and fluid prose especially as they think English is not his native language. Well, it isn't his native language, but it did precede his native Russian. Phew! If any of that makes any sense.
Anyhow it is brought out on p.28 that During one of his short stays with us in the country that summer, he ascertained, with patriotic dismay, that my brother and I could read and write English but not Russian (except KAKAO and MAMA). It was decided that the village schoolmaster should come every afternoon to give us lessons and take us for walks. The "his/he" in that quote referrs to VN's father.
Plus the time was the summer of 1905...Nabokov was born in April of 1899.

Paul

26th September 2006, 23:02

It was decided that the village schoolmaster should come every afternoon to give us lessons and take us for walks. The "his/he" in that quote referrs to VN's father.
Plus the time was the summer of 1905...Nabokov was born in April of 1899.

Pontalba,
I was also struck by the other fact about 1905, actually 1906, and his father. Namely that his father was jailed for organizing a protest against the Tsar when the latter illegally dissolved the Parliament. I don't know much about the politics or Government of the period but maybe his father was lucky to escape with his life and (only!) 1 1/2 years in jail. In any event, here was young Nabokov becoming aware of the political events of 1905-6, then being squeezed out of Russia into Germany by the Russian Revolution, and then being squeezed further to France and eventually to the United States by the rise of Hitler. Vladimir Nabokov, in his own person, was a direct witness to momentous events in Eurpoean history, beginning right in chapter 1 of Speak, Memory. It's almost a wonder to me he didn't go into politics, but fortunate for literature that he didn't. In fact, it may be lucky that he escaped with his own life through all of that turmoil.

pontalba

27th September 2006, 03:19

Vladimir Nabokov's father was an amazing man. There was a small window of opportunity inbetween the Tsars and the Communist Revolution, that some lovers of democracy attempted to use. Here is a wikipdeia article on VN's father.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Dmitrievich_Nabokov

Fascinating family.

As far as VN going into politics for himself, I think he saw too much corruption and the sad results of interference in same to attempt such a thing. He lived in Berlin part of the 20's and the 30's, but he kept as separate from the Germans as possible, refusing to throughly learn the language even.

dogmatix

27th September 2006, 03:21

Discuss slower :wink: I've not even started yet. :D But I can't wait to. Probably will be this Sunday. Glad to see three pages here already.

pontalba

27th September 2006, 03:23

Discuss slower :wink: I've not even started yet. :D But I can't wait to. Probably will be this Sunday. Glad to see three pages here already.

:mrgreen: You got it! Glad to see ya.

Paul

27th September 2006, 07:48

Discuss slower :wink: I've not even started yet. :D But I can't wait to. Probably will be this Sunday. Glad to see three pages here already.
Dogmatix,
Have no fear! The "slower" is taking care of itself quite nicely here, at least, as I get completely absorbed in the writing and can't speed ahead. :) His descriptions are beautiful to read, and then reread and visualize.
I am really quite taken by the book and overjoyed to see another person joining in. Welcome, if I may say. :D

And Pontalba, many thanks for the link. I'll get to it in the daylight when I am a little more awake here. Now it is back to bed.

Paul

27th September 2006, 14:05

A few posts back
...maybe his father was lucky to escape with his life and (only!) 1 1/2 years in jail.

Correct that!

VN's father spent 3 months in jail (only!) for opposing the Tsar, not 1 1/2 years. That seems really mild.

Another benefit of re-reading: Catching errors. /sigh/ :roll:

Paul

27th September 2006, 21:06

Vladimir Nabokov's father was an amazing man. There was a small window of opportunity inbetween the Tsars and the Communist Revolution, that some lovers of democracy attempted to use. Here is a wikipdeia article on VN's father.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Dmitrievich_Nabokov

Pontalba,
What a fascinating article about a democratic possibility in Russian History that I never knew anything about! And V.D. Nabokov's role in it. Amazing. :shock:
Great link!
Many thanks.

dogmatix

27th September 2006, 22:11

I've got my copy and should be cracking its spine in just a couple of days. :reading:

muggle not

27th September 2006, 23:00

I've got my copy and should be cracking its spine in just a couple of days. :reading:
Go slow now. I don't want to be the one to turn out the lights.

Paul

28th September 2006, 00:39

I like this idea of slow reading. Not only does it fit in with my available time, but I see so many things in this book that are worth a second look and some comment or discussion (and only the first chapter, so far!). But right now I'm going to have to do some slow sleeping. So, see you all tomorrow. :)

dogmatix

28th September 2006, 01:30

Goodnight!

pontalba

28th September 2006, 01:31

:that: Slow is the best speed when reading Nabokov, as if he is read too fast.....great details are lost. sloooowiiinnnng speeeeedd noowww....

:bookworm:

Paul

28th September 2006, 10:27

Sleepy ROTFL. Be back later. :)

dogmatix

28th September 2006, 23:37

I've got the morning off Friday and gues what book I'l be starting 8-)

Paul

29th September 2006, 00:07

Way to go Dogmatix!
That's dedication to the cause!
Hope you enjoy. :)

pontalba

29th September 2006, 01:19

Yay dogmatix!!

:mrgreen:

pontalba

29th September 2006, 01:21

I've got my copy and should be cracking its spine in just a couple of days. :reading:
Go slow now. I don't want to be the one to turn out the lights.

LOL muggle, you know how long winded I can be, so I doubt there is any fear of you being the last to leave. 8-) :D

muggle not

29th September 2006, 14:53

One thing I have noticed while reading the book is that Nabokov's mother was a very perceptive woman. Everyone seems to talk about Nabokov and his father but the mother seems to be quite a woman, at least from the little that i have read so far.

pontalba

29th September 2006, 14:59

You are very correct muggle, she was a wonderful woman, and if not for her his life would have been quite different. But I won't give the reason away. :)

dogmatix

29th September 2006, 15:45

Ahhhh Pontalba I see the light. This is a gorgeous book. Swallowed down the first couple of chapters this morning.

First impresions:

His mastery of imagery is awesome. I'm not reading about it I'm experiencing it.

He's obviously brilliant. I've got to keep a dictionary at arm's length for some of the words but after getting the definitions in my head I see that Nabokov choose each not because they are obscure and show "just how smart he is" but because each is THE perfect word to use.

I love the discussion about the beginings of self awarenes and memory. Such an interesting and beautiful description of early chilhood.

Oh and Muggle, I think I love his mother almost as much as he does.

Okay so I need a very brief review on the timeline from Tsar to WWII. I don't know anything about Bolsheviks, Lennin, Stalin. Gotta love an ethnocentric American education. Anyone care to joy down a brief note for my benefit?

muggle not

29th September 2006, 16:23

dogmatix,

Go back and re-read everything. I am just starting chapter two and you are ahead of me already. :oops: :wink: :D

dogmatix

29th September 2006, 17:07

dogmatix,

Go back and re-read everything. I am just starting chapter two and you are ahead of me already. :oops: :wink: :D

Yes captain! I'll be spending a little time on Wikipedia filling in some history gaps today.

pontalba

29th September 2006, 17:19

Dogmatix....
Here is another link to do with Nabokov's father. I think from the links in it you will be able to find what you need for research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Dmitrievich_Nabokov

I don't think it is the same link I posted earlier, but can't scroll back far enough without losing this.

dogmatix

29th September 2006, 17:28

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.

dogmatix

29th September 2006, 17:31

Sweet link. Thanks Pontalba.

pontalba

29th September 2006, 17:31

Dogmatix..
Follow the "Kadet" link in the article. Interesting stuff.

Also to get a feel for the time Nabokov spent in Berlin, I found an absolutely marvelous non-fiction book by Otto Friedrich...Before the Deluge. Nabokov is even spoken of in it, several times.

Berlin in the 1920's was a heck of a place to be.....makes nowadays look pretty tame. And VN wrote so many of his stories there, taking the times into account so well, and throughly, even though he did not actually speak German too well, he hated it.

pontalba

29th September 2006, 17:36

Also one thing I'd like to bring out about Nabokov's writing in parallel with the times he lived. I am reminded of Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.....she wrote right at the time the events were taking place with such insight. I haven't read the book yet, only skimmed and read the reviews...but from what I can tell.....marvelous.

It is amazing to me that these authors could write about the times they were living in so clearly. Capture just the right note. So often, it is impossible to see the forest for the trees, but they picked out the individual branches.

pontalba

29th September 2006, 18:05

dogmatix,

Go back and re-read everything. I am just starting chapter two and you are ahead of me already. :oops: :wink: :D

LOL Muggle, I've only been skim rereading so far, I have to sit down and really reread! So don't feel too far behind. :groupdance:

muggle not

29th September 2006, 21:04

This reminds me, did any of you read the book "Ten Days That Shook The World". I forgot the author but remember that it was a great book that I enjoyed and I think I still have the book.

pontalba

29th September 2006, 23:18

dogmatix

30th September 2006, 00:28

It is amazing to me that these authors could write about the times they were living in so clearly. Capture just the right note. So often, it is impossible to see the forest for the trees, but they picked out the individual branches.

It's eerie almost...

pontalba

30th September 2006, 00:38

It certainly calls for a detachment I don't think I could achieve!

What I love the most about Speak, Memory I think is the over whelming love VN has for his family. He can pour so much emotion in a few sentences or paragraphs........

So we have a certain clinical detachment on one side, and extreme love and protectiveness on the other. And when he draws the line between what he will share and what he won't it stays drawn.

muggle not

30th September 2006, 01:15

This reminds me, did any of you read the book "Ten Days That Shook The World". I forgot the author but remember that it was a great book that I enjoyed and I think I still have the book.

I'm not familiar with it. Is this the one you mean?
Link (http://www.amazon.com/Shook-World-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140182934/sr=8-1/qid=1159571795/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1401110-5219131?ie=UTF8&s=books)
Yes, that is the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the book although it has been many years since I read it. This is the Amazon.com review:

Amazon.com
The situation in St. Petersburg was growing more and more tense. The People's Revolution had begun by overthrowing the corrupt Tsarist regime in March 1917, but the workers and the peasants felt the revolution had much farther to go. Tired of fighting a war that meant little to them, the soldiers also grew restless: "When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have something to fight for, and we'll fight for it!"
Lenin pressed the Bolsheviks to seize power. On the night of October 24, an organized mass of workers, soldiers, peasants, and sailors stormed the Winter Palace. On the following day, at the opening of the second Congress of Soviets, Trotsky announced the overthrow of the provisional government. Counterrevolutionary forces marched on the capital, but the Revolutionary Army triumphed. After all, "[t]his was their battle, for their world; the officers in command were elected by them. For the moment that incoherent multiple will was one will."

In Ten Days That Shook the World John Reed tells the story of Red October and the Russian revolution from a unique, firsthand perspective. Reed, an American journalist, was on assignment in Russia for The Masses--then the principal radical journal in the United States--and spent his days walking the streets, reading and collecting handbills, newspapers, and posters, and talking to people. As a result, Ten Days crackles with energetic immediacy. At its best moments it reads like a novel: Reed recounts conversations and arguments, details political machinations, and speculates on personal motives. Though this is no mere piece of propaganda, Reed's enthusiasm for the revolution infuses the text (some readers may be put off by Reed's florid prose), casting each counterrevolutionary act in a negative light. Helpful notes flesh out the background for those less familiar with the preceding events and render this a solid work of history. Ten Days That Shook the World is a stirring account of a stirring event. --Sunny Delaney

Paul

30th September 2006, 09:09

That is the book! And John Reed is famous as its author. I haven't read the book (yet /sigh/) but he is also the subject of the absolutely marvelous documentary film and love story, Reds, which I see on Amazon is going to be re-released on DVD soon. The movie is not to be missed, for all of the luminaries it contains speaking live in first person, and also to see who John Reed really was. Amazing times, and an amazing man (and woman).

pontalba

30th September 2006, 14:49

I'd heard of the movie Reds but frankly didn't pay much attention to it as Robert Redford irritates me for some reason.
But if the movie is that good, I might have to take a look anyhow.

Paul

30th September 2006, 18:27

Pontalba, Muggle,
I was thinking of the 25th Anniversary Edition DVD with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton, coming in October at Amazon. If have it right and knew how to make a nicer link.

http://www.amazon.com/Reds-25th-Anniversary-Beatty/dp/B000GG4Y32/sr=1-1/qid=1159639775/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9512507-2501634?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

PS Also picked up Ten Days that Shook the World and it has one of the most glowing recommendations for a book that I have ever seen, in the Intro by A.J.P.Taylor: "Reed's book is not only the best account of the Bolshevik Revolution, it comes near to being the best account of any revolution."
Boyd of course has similar praise for Speak, Memory among autobiographies.
Sound like two fabulous books.

pontalba

30th September 2006, 22:37

LOL ok, Redford or Beatty, same diff....both irritating, but sorry about the mix up of actors. :)
But the book does sound interesting.

Paul

30th September 2006, 23:32

LOL ok, Redford or Beatty, same diff....both irritating, but sorry about the mix up of actors. :)
But the book does sound interesting.
Pontalba,
Waaal, it is true that you'll have a hard time avoiding Beatty (or Keaton), but it also has a cast of thousands that you can see listed on IMDB, including a live talking Henry Miller, for example, commenting on the times, and other notables whose names I had only ever heard of, plus actors such as Jack Nicholson playing still other notables. It is as much talking history as it is drama and I thought it was a feast for people watching.
And now I'll leave you in peace to make up your own mind. Back to regular programming. :)

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 12:50

I'm enjoying the maturation and diversions this thread is taking. I'm getting so much more out of this book then I ever would on my own. Plan on finishing my re-read of chapter 3 today and hitting chapter 4 (and possibly 5). I'll be picking up a copy of The Ten Days... too.

How are you getting along Muggle?

pontalba

1st October 2006, 14:40

dogmatix
I am so glad you are enjoying yourself with this book! Yes, an immediate reread of Chap. 3 is wise. The ancestors, a chapter that has tripped up some, but is necessary, and to me fascinating. :)

pontalba

1st October 2006, 14:41

Pontalba,
Waaal, it is true that you'll have a hard time avoiding Beatty (or Keaton), but it also has a cast of thousands that you can see listed on IMDB, including a live talking Henry Miller, for example, commenting on the times, and other notables whose names I had only ever heard of, plus actors such as Jack Nicholson playing still other notables. It is as much talking history as it is drama and I thought it was a feast for people watching.
And now I'll leave you in peace to make up your own mind. Back to regular programming. :)
:) In spite of my dislike or certain actors, it does sound verra interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

muggle not

1st October 2006, 16:07

I do recommend that y'all give "Ten days That Shook The World" a try. Like I mentioned, it was a long time ago that I read the book but do still remember that it was very good.

Dogmatix, I see that Nabokov mentioned you on page 39 in speak, Memory.

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 20:16

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 22:04

pontalba

1st October 2006, 22:54

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.
There is so much of himself that Nabokov injects into his work. For example the scene on p.24 where he describes a certain train trip...One night, during a trip abroad, in the fall of 1903, I recall kneeling on my (flattish) pillow at the window of a sleeping car (probably on the long-extinct Mediterranean Train de Luxe, the one whose six cars had the lower part of their body painted in mber and the panels in cream) and seeing with an inexplicable pang, a handful of fabulous lights that beckoned to me from a distant hillside, and then slipped into a pocket of black velvet: diamonds that I later gave away to my characters to alleviate the burden of my wealth. I had probably managed to undo and push up the tight tooled blind at the head of my berth, and my heels were cold, but I still kept kneeling and peering. Nothing is sweeter or stranger than to ponder those first thrills.
He gave this to Martin in Glory. The diamond like lights in the distance beckoned to Martin as well. But the detail...a flattish pillow, so we can receive exactly the right look of the scene. The chill of his heels from the open window....

And VN's memory! Oy!

pontalba

1st October 2006, 23:06

Also on p. 29 toward the bottom Nabokov speaks of the joy with which the village greeted his father when he returned home from his 3 month incarceration. I found a picture of the bluebottles he speaks of that were part of the decorations that lined the path from the railway station to home.
http://i9.tinypic.com/4bqb29l.jpg
They were his father's favorite flowers.

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 23:14

I love the description of the sucession of nannies/ teachers.

pontalba

1st October 2006, 23:21

And the "Confessions of a synesthete" that are so beautifully described. What a wonderful gift! Obviously it runs in the family as his mother and son at least have it, plus Vera his wife does too.

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.

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 23:26

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

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 23:29

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:

pontalba

1st October 2006, 23:32

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.....:)

pontalba

1st October 2006, 23:34

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:

We don't speak of TBR lists around here.....it is too embarrasing. :D :blush:

pontalba

1st October 2006, 23:35

In fact I must admit to 19 or 20 books sitting right here to my left that are all started........maybe 21(ish)

Just put it on your list. You won't be sorry.

dogmatix

1st October 2006, 23:43

pontalba

2nd October 2006, 15:21

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!
LOL Shows the exploring spirit! Yes!
I agree, I'd have to know!

Just Nabokov's description of summer dusk! or Summer soomerki.
There is no skimming or skating through a Nabokov...each word must be savored.
Other authors may be "twisty" or layered to an extent, but the painterly manner of VN's writing is a true feast.

dogmatix

3rd October 2006, 01:09

Painterly - what a great word to describe his writing.

muggle not

3rd October 2006, 01:12

Painterly - what a great word to describe his writing.
Reminds me of Charles Russell...........put er down Charlie before she's gone.

the great western painter.

pontalba

3rd October 2006, 01:29

Painterly - what a great word to describe his writing.
I wish I could take credit for it, but I can't, but I also can't remember where I read it. I have er, several :roll: , yeah, lets say several research tools for Nabokov. It just struck me as the most apt description of his writing.

pontalba

3rd October 2006, 17:32

Nabokov's love of nature comes through in all of his books, but he allows himself full rein in Speak, Memory, showing even more his own vunerability. His mother taught him the value of remembering his surroundings....
...To love with all one's soul and leave the rest to fate, was the simple rule she heeded. "Vot zapomni [now remember]" , she would say in conspiratorial tones as she drew my attention to this or that loved thing in Vyra--a lark ascending the curds-and-whey sky of a dull spring day, heat lightning taking pictures of a distant line of trees in the night, the palette of maple leaves on brown sand, a small bird's cuneate footprints on new snow. As if feeling that in a few years the tangible part of her world would perish, she cultivated an extraordinary consciousness of the various time marks distributed throughout our country place. She cherished her own past with the same retrospective fevor that I now do her image and my past. Thus, in a way, I inherited an exquisite simulacrum--the beauty of intangible property, unreal estate--and this proved a splendid training for the endurance of later losses.
(underlining mine)
What a wonderful legacy his mother made for him. Unreal estate. Marvelous.

She had to sense what was coming, the terrible wrench that would take place, so she gave her son the things that really mattered. Memories. You know a friend of our family was a concentration camp survivor, and he said that the one thing the guards could not take from the prisoners was their thoughts. And memories fit right into that scheme of things.

Anyhow I started this post with the intention of talking about nature, and VN's love of same. :) In all of his books he describes the flowering shrubs and trees and in general the natural surroundings in his stories so beautifully that most of the time I am impelled to find a picture of whatever he is talking about.

dogmatix

3rd October 2006, 20:13

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.

pontalba

3rd October 2006, 21:47

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?

Why do you say he dislikes Switzerland? I must have missed something along the line. You know he lived the last 16 (ish) years of his life in Switzerland.
I thought he was unhappy about the way Mademoiselle and the other governesses ended up beautifying or idealizing a past that for most of them (Mademoiselle at least) was anything but idealistic. Her unfortunate partial deafness and her behaviour at the dinner table and what almost seemed like a persecution complex...especially with Lenski made her miserable.
She seemed to remember things far differently than VN did. The bit about her remembering his little confidences was more than likely wishful thinking, as he in the aside says "Never!". And frankly I cannot imagine that she was correct in that. Even as a child that was not in his nature.

pontalba

3rd October 2006, 21:49

Oh, and the swan simply made me want to cry!

muggle not

4th October 2006, 02:17

he and his brother remind me a little of my brother and myself when we were kids. Unwrapping the Christmas presents and looking and then re-wrapping them.......unsuccessfully. My brother and I found where our Christmas toys were hid and had the toys worn out before Christmas and then re-wrapped them....unsuccessfully. :D

dogmatix

4th October 2006, 11:27

That is such a sweet memory.

Paul

4th October 2006, 20:52

Very belatedly, I offer a post that goes way back to the very beginning of Speak Memory. I hope it is only a pebble in the roadway of this glorious discussion, which is showing me so much of the book through your all's eyes, and that the pebble is easily circumvented or rode over to get on with the discussion.

I've been bogged down in the the other world from this forum (namely the Real World) and haven't made it past the end of Chapter 1. However, the upside is that I have been staring hard at the Chapter and rereading, over and over, VN's opening remarks about his interest in time, before and after our lives. At first they seem like a loose collection of assorted thoughts.

The memorable opening metaphor is of course:
1. "The cradle rocks above an abyss and . . . our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness;"
2. Followed by VN's observation that he rebels against that state of affairs and, "short of suicide" [/gasp/, oh no!], has sought diligently and unsuccessfully to find an exit;
3. Which he then follows with his memory of his first realization of time when walking along between his parents.

It occurs to me that if one unrolls those memories backward, and replays them in chronological order, one has
A. His first memory of his realization of time when out walking with his parents;
B. His strenuous subsequent attempts throughout his entire life to solve the puzzle and find an answer;
C. And finally, his summary of his mature thoughts in the striking metaphor that opens the book.

So, one might see that opening metaphor as a brilliant summary of his thoughts, rather than merely an introduction to his book! But, even more fascinating to me, is that we may have here, before our very eyes, one of the few detailed glimpses into VN's actual thought processes as he assembles various events and thoughts from his life, and collects them finally into a sublimely brilliant passage such as we have seen flow from his pen so many times.

"The cradle rocks above an abyss and our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

Bravo! Bravo! Author! Author!
A lifetime of events and mature reflection is summarized in that brilliant passage.

pontalba

4th October 2006, 22:10

So, one might see that opening metaphor as a brilliant summary of his thoughts, rather than merely an introduction to his book! But, even more fascinating to me, is that we may have here, before our very eyes, one of the few detailed glimpses into VN's actual thought processes as he assembles various events and thoughts from his life, and collects them finally into a sublimely brilliant passage such as we have seen flow from his pen so many times.

Bravo! Bravo! Author! Author!
A lifetime of events and mature reflection is summarized in that brilliant passage.
Yes! He did tend to play it close to the vest and not elaborate on his own....beliefs. Just as in the way he is so open about his life, but otoh closed-mouthed as far as the really private moments go. But this coded opening into his true thoughts is a summary. I just didn't think of it in that way before.
And yes, the bit about walking between his parents, and realizing that time was actually a living thing so to speak was telling.

It's funny but children take their surroundings so for granted. But I remember my father building onto our house when I was 5 or 6 and how shocked, but interested I was in the walls actually being something other than solid blanks. They had more wood, wires and all sorts of interesting components hidden. A bit like life. :cool:

Paul

4th October 2006, 23:07

It's funny but children take their surroundings so for granted. But I remember my father building onto our house when I was 5 or 6 and how shocked, but interested I was in the walls actually being something other than solid blanks. They had more wood, wires and all sorts of interesting components hidden. A bit like life. :cool:
Pontalba,
I do think children start out thinking that the world they know is the way the world is, and always has been. I remember having a similar realization to your own, that the world can change and that it must not have always been the way I thought it to be. I forget the occasion (sorry VN, /groan/) but I do remember having that realization. :roll: It's fascinating that VN also remembered such an event and that he chose to describe it so vividly. And that he remembered it started such a chain of speculation in his life. Interesting also that he chose so explicitly to mine his memory so deeply for its recollections. All fascinating insights into his creative process. (Which sparks the thought for another post, actually, in a bit).

pontalba

4th October 2006, 23:47

Pontalba,
I do think children start out thinking that the world they know is the way the world is, and always has been.

And if their parents are the insular sort, the child never realizes the differences, and all sorts of bigotry stems from that tunnel vision generation after generation. Nabokov was as far as I can tell an extremely....how to put it...broad minded doesn't exactly fit, but in the same ballpark. He was not prejudiced against anything but prejudice itself, or tyranny of any sort.

Paul

5th October 2006, 04:54

Nabokov was as far as I can tell an extremely....how to put it...broad minded doesn't exactly fit, but in the same ballpark. He was not prejudiced against anything but prejudice itself, or tyranny of any sort.
Pontalba,
He was definitely a very unusual man for his aristocratic background. (And in that way, he took after his father). I think I remember a very telling remark from the famous ancestry Chapter 3, from my first read of Speak Memory some time ago. I seem to remember one of his aunts(?) telling him that if his democratic Kadet ideas for government succeeded, then the end result would work against his personal benefit, meaning against his wealthy position in society.
As it turns out, that came to pass in its own way, even if it was the Bolshevik Revolution and not the Kadet government that brought about his loss and drove him from Russia.

pontalba

5th October 2006, 06:38

Pontalba,
He was definitely a very unusual man for his aristocratic background. (And in that way, he took after his father). I think I remember a very telling remark from the famous ancestry Chapter 3, from my first read of Speak Memory some time ago. I seem to remember one of his aunts(?) telling him that if his democratic Kadet ideas for government succeeded, then the end result would work against his personal benefit, meaning against his wealthy position in society.
As it turns out, that came to pass in its own way, even if it was the Bolshevik Revolution and not the Kadet government that brought about his loss and drove him from Russia.
I remember something along those lines, but can't put my eyes on it yet. But a couple of things stand out in that chapter that bring out VN's personality perfectly. One being the bit on p.73 regarding nostalgia... My old (since 1917) quarrel with the Soviet dictatorship is wholly unrelated to any question of property. My contempt for the émigré who "hates the Reds" because they "stole" his money and land is complete. The nostalgia I have been cherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes.
Considering that VN had already inherited a couple of million from his Uncle Ruka (back when a couple of million was a lot of money :roll: ) and stood to inherit more down the road that is quite a statement. He meant every word of it. And he was totally correct.

That and then at the very end of the chapter when he speaks of remembering Uncle Ruka remembering one of the children's books, and of course his own rememberances of the same book. 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. /sigh/

pontalba

5th October 2006, 06:42

dogmatix

5th October 2006, 10:43

This discussion is really heating up :smile2: , but ARgggghhhhhh I'm stuck in DC at a surgical conference and haven't anytime to read, or discuss. I'll be back in the fold by Saturday. The good news is I'll be visiting the American History Museum today. I'll be sure to pay close attention to anything related.

pontalba

5th October 2006, 17:52

dogmatix

5th October 2006, 18:39

Well the American History Museum is under renovation so I hit the Natural History Museum instead. To honor our VN I toured the butterfly garden. Apparently (If I read this right) 170 species of butterfly frequent the garden. He would have been in heaven I'm sure.

http://www.landscapeonline.com/research/lol/2005/10/img/9204.jpg

pontalba

5th October 2006, 18:43

Oh Boy! Sounds marvelous!
Thought you'd be interested in this link....

http://www.amazon.com/Nabokovs-Blues-Scientific-Odyssey-Literary/dp/0071373306/sr=1-1/qid=1160073741/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-7799685-9162534?ie=UTF8&s=books

Oh! Just saw the picture! Gorgeous!

dogmatix

5th October 2006, 18:50

Thanks for the link. On a similar note I just picked up this

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0393325717.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

pontalba

5th October 2006, 20:51

muggle not

5th October 2006, 22:03

The reviews were contradictory, some claiming the book did not live up to it's title a bit.
But honestly, the only reason I was interested in the butterfly book was because of Nabokov himself. :readingtwo:
Now how did I forget already about nabokov and the butterflies. BTW dogmatix, great photo of the butterfly. All Butterflies are beautiful things.

I am about 2/3 through chapter 3. I am amazed at his recollection of all the relatives, the dates, their line of work, etc. Wow, what a family.

pontalba

5th October 2006, 23:06

Great muggle! Some people bog down in that chapter, but he made it so interesting and funny with the reminiscences.

"Everything is water..." :smile2:

dogmatix

5th October 2006, 23:31

Speaking of Darwin and tying in a point Pontalba made about the importance of nature as a theme here.

(chapter 6 pg 125 our VN says):

"When a butterfly has to look like a leaf, not only are the details of the leaf beautifully rendered but markings mimicking grub-bored holes are generously thrown in. 'Natural selection', in the Darwinian sense, could not explain the miraculous coincidences of imitative aspect and imitative behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of the 'struggle for life' when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator's power of appreciation. I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception"

I believe he is speaking about devine design here.

Paul

6th October 2006, 02:06

I believe he is speaking about devine design here.
Dogmatix,
He does seem to be doing exactly that right there while, on the other hand, remaining entirely non-committal with respect to belief in the details of any organized religion or in the God of any organized religion.

In that respect he seems to be following his mother's attitudes toward religion that I think I'm going to be finding summarized in Chapter 2, which I am now getting to (again). The summary phrase that I remember, standing out from previous reading, was his confidence in "marching in the right direction" toward an afterlife, without at the same time being able to know any specifics about its details.

His religious attitude pokes through here and there as I recall -- in the paragraph you note, and also elsewhere here and there in his novels -- but most notably in Transparent Things where the afterlife becomes a full-fledged (and interactive!) part of the story for the first and only(?) time. IMO it's a fascinating theme to try to follow through his work, because his viewpoint seems to be quite uniquely his own and he holds to it quite consistently.

I hope some of this sounds familiar to all of you who are ahead of me in the reading. My memory speaks also, but very cloudy. :)

pontalba

6th October 2006, 17:42

Dogmatix,
He does seem to be doing exactly that right there while, on the other hand, remaining entirely non-committal with respect to belief in the details of any organized religion or in the God of any organized religion.

In that respect he seems to be following his mother's attitudes toward religion that I think I'm going to be finding summarized in Chapter 2, which I am now getting to (again).
I hope some of this sounds familiar to all of you who are ahead of me in the reading. My memory speaks also, but very cloudy. :)

Very familiar, here is some info from Brian Boyd's Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years p. 72:
...In fact, once past the stage of children's prayers he always remained completely aloof from "Christianism," as he called it, utterly indifferent "to organized mysticism, to religion, to the church--any church." Because his mother was of Old Believer stock, she had what Nabokov considered a "healthy distaste for the ritual of the Greek Catholic Church and for its priests," but equally important for the boy's development was her intense and pure religiousness: "equal faith in the existence of another world and in the impossibility of comprehending it in terms of earthly life." V.D. Nabokov was more conventional, and would take his children fairly often, especially in Lent, not to the vast St. Isaac's Cathedral nearby but to the very select Chruch of the Twelve Apostles in Pochtamtsky (Post Office) Lane, almost behind their house.

Now this exerpt from the same BB is on p. 354 and takes place just when VN is beginning Glory..... Before he had written much of the new novel, Nabokov visited Prague. Arriving in the second week of May, he found his mother quite changed, calm and cheerful, revived in spirits by her newfound faith in Christian Science--"so I can only approve," he wrote back to Berlin. Within his work, he would always remain hostile to the conventionality of religion; speaking as a public figure outside the work, he kept his mother's case in mind and took care not to undermine other people's private consolations.
This reticence is admirable on his part, and shows another vein of his sensitivity.

Paul

6th October 2006, 21:04

This reticence is admirable on his part, and shows another vein of his sensitivity.
Pontalba,
What a beautiful and illuminating post!
He seems more, and more, and more to be clearly recognizable as a son of both his parents. And proud they really would have been (or are).

pontalba

7th October 2006, 16:28

VN was really a thoughtful and kind man, look at the "Appliance" for Mademoiselle to enable her to hear...and the way he didn't drive it home that he knew she couldn't afford it, and then that even with it she could not hear properly. That whole episode was....hurtfully sweet. On the next page (117) he notes how She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depth, alone gave her the impression of moving and living. Well it is true, some people are like that....always miserable, always searching.....for what? Even they don't know, and if they found "it", it would not be recognized as the solution. :cry:

I love the way he refers to her "radiant deceit"...she truely loved him, and he knew it.
Swan = Mademoiselle.....
Gallant to the end.

Sofia

7th October 2006, 23:04

I blame Pontalba with all this Nabokov talk. I went to the library to make some copies for work...and walked out with Lolita:roll:

ok...continue with your regularly scheduled topic:D

pontalba

7th October 2006, 23:21

Yes, well, its a dirty job, but someone has to do it. I know all about that pontalba.....gotta watch her every moment of every day. :lol:

Be careful Sophia, next thing you will be ordering all the Nabokov's from Amazon.............
:tease:

It's a slippery slope....:lurker:

dogmatix

7th October 2006, 23:43

Paul

8th October 2006, 04:41

The more I read the more I like VN (as a person). His sensitivity and progresive ideas.

Dogmatix,
You are so right!
He is writing Speak Memory about the events of his life, but I find that I am reading it more about him as a person.

(And of course the glories of those long toes, when one can recognize the allusions). :)

Paul

8th October 2006, 04:49

I went to the library to make some copies for work...and walked out with Lolita:roll:

Well, of course! :D :D :D :D
Congratulations!

pontalba

8th October 2006, 15:53

The more I read the more I like VN (as a person). His sensitivity and progresive ideas.

I love the descriptions of Colette. Her feet (long toes) reminds me of some other little nymph's feet he wrote about some time later.

That is what is so neat about reading Nabokov, the assemblage of his writing is (to me) like a giant puzzle....this piece fits, this piece doesn't, or is backwards......to his own life, or his other novels. Puzzles within puzzles

must learn to play chess......it'll make even more sense then....

muggle not

10th October 2006, 17:41

I will post a few observations of Nabokov, at the risk of pontalba never speaking to me again, from a few writings in his book:

From his writing of mademoissele:
"One is always at home in one's past, which partly explains those pathetic ladies' 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".

This strikes me as being somewhat a little snobbish on his part.

On the following mornign, however, when she unlocked the wardrobe to take something out, my Swallowtail, with a mighty rustle, flew into her face, then made for the open window, and presently was but a golden fleck dippimg and dodging and soaring eastward......"

I could not stop from feeling a sense of freedom for the butterfly.....fly, butterfly, fly away

Reading of nabokov's being under ether while undergoing an appendectomy reminded me of how far we have come in medicine.

I am now almost finished with chapter 6 and am enjoying the book.

pontalba

10th October 2006, 21:08

Oh muggle! :mrgreen: I am so glad you are enjoying it! And why would you ever think I wouldn't speak to you!? :dunno: :confused:

I have to laugh, Nabokov was a bit of a snob. That is part of what I find so delightful about him. But I've never found him to be mean spirited in his meanderings, and to me that is what pulls the weight.
I agree with him, those poor old women were rather pathetic in their longing for a past which whilst they were there, they hated it! That has to be the height of something or other! Silliness or whatever!

And I have to say I was rooting for the butterfly as well! That has always been one aspect that I didn't like.....but he says something in there....maybe I can find it right now ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~looking ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~I can't find it at the moment, but the essence is this. All the butterflies, and creatures of all sorts that are killed by insecticides and so forth are gone, dead for nothing but farmers spraying their crops or gardners spraying for the flowers.....at least when he caught and killed a butterfly it was preserved to be enjoyed and admired for its beauty, and studied for science--not sprayed and fallen on the ground and gone back to dust unenjoyed and unappreciated by anyone.

dogmatix

10th October 2006, 23:34

"One is always at home in one's past, which partly explains those pathetic ladies' 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".

This, I think was what I was talking about several posts back. Do I have this wrong? Which country is he talking about here? Maybe I'm confused.

pontalba

11th October 2006, 00:40

This, I think was what I was talking about several posts back. Do I have this wrong? Which country is he talking about here? Maybe I'm confused.
Well the governesses are living in their native Switzerland at that point, if you go back a page, (115) you will see: She spoke as warmly of her life in Russia as if it were her own lost homeland.
Which is blind hindsight as far as I can tell, as Mademoiselle hated Russia while she was there, but now that it is past she is looking at Russia through rose-colored glasses and proclaiming how wonderful it was. Nabokov did not consider Russia as rather appalling country But Mademoiselle did while she was there.

Revisionist history (on their part). I think that is why Nabokov referrs to them as pathetic...which is not necessarily bad. One of pathetic's meanings is simply "arousing pity or sadness".....it is not always meant in a contempteous manner.

dogmatix

11th October 2006, 02:40

Ahhh clearly I was confused..... it dosen't take much.:irked:

pontalba

11th October 2006, 02:48

Ahhh clearly I was confused..... it dosen't take much.:irked:
This is my second and a half reading after all. I wasn't sure the first time around, I had to go back and re-re-read!
That is the fun of Nabokov. Twisty little fella. :smile2: :readingtwo:

Paul

11th October 2006, 17:48

This, I think was what I was talking about several posts back. Do I have this wrong? Which country is he talking about here? Maybe I'm confused.
Hi dogmatix, pontalba,
I see I am a little late to the party, but I was completely intrigued by the quote that you, dogmatix, highlighted, where VN uses the phrase "rather appalling country" about Russia, as you correctly suggested.

The thought crossed my mind that you also might be thinking of the time(s), as I was, when VN commented that his regret at leaving Russia was not the loss of his wealth, which was confiscated, but rather the loss of the countryside of his fondest childhood memories. The contrast of the two thoughts is indeed striking and I have been scratching my head since, as to how he could possibly use the word "appalling."

Finally, it has seemed to me that VN was prompted to realize that life for Mademoiselle with the Nabokov's was not so much fun, being restricted to the single mis-pronounced word "giddy-yeh" (for "where"), and perhaps lacking accustomed amenities in a rustic environment (and here I am completely guessing), with muddy roads, cold weather and so on. For VN himself, life was not so bad at all, and he was accustomed to it; but for an imported governess it might have felt rather different, as he describes at length.

It seems like an interesting example of a single person seeing the same situation from two different perspectives, at two different times, in two different contexts, and (gallantly) choosing to voice (or correct) the governess's perspective. To me that sounds like the gesture of an open-minded and appreciative man, even if his remark comes across as somewhat judgmental about the rosiness of her memories. It seems to me like a complicated set of perspectives that he is trying to grapple with at once.

All of which I think says about the same thing that Pontalba said, but with many more words.

The other possibility, that he might have been referring to his view of the "appalling" situation of the Country under the Bolsheviks at the time he was writing Speak Memory just doesn't seem to really come into it as a possibility. He was a much more careful writer than that, to permit such confusion, I would say.

Anyway, now, finally now, I am rounding the corner into Chapter Two, hoping to catch up and freshen all these thoughts in my head. Forward! :)

dogmatix

12th October 2006, 10:24

"Tip, leaf, dip, relief"

Ahhhhh. It's the moment of conception from which all the wonder grows.

Paul

12th October 2006, 12:36

"Tip, leaf, dip, relief"

Ahhhhh. It's the moment of conception from which all the wonder grows.

Dogmatix,

Yes! The exact moment, and he noticed it precisely! And remembered it.

That is why it seemed more than a little strange to me to read a short and very enigmatic paragraph in Chapter 1, which he seemed to slip in almost unnoticeably at the end of Section 2 there.

But even so, the individual mystery remains to tantalize the memoirist. Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed on my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap.

Here he is, in effect, answering a question that hasn't been asked, namely, "Where did your talent come from?" and in effect he is saying "I don't know. Talent I may have, yes. But why? I don't know."

He has completed his musings on the nature of time, and the impenetrable walls of the abyss, and has already segued into beautiful pictorial descriptions of the early memorable events of his life, especially the endearing memory of the small child, kneeling in his pajamas and peering out the window on a train journey while his heels get cold. He has even said, to open that paragraph

How small the cosmos (a kangaroo's pouch would hold it), how paltry and puny in comparison with human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words! I may be inordinately fond of my earliest impressions, but then I have reason to be grateful to them. They led the way to a veritable Eden of visual and tactile sensations.

Here is an overwhelmingly powerful description of the majesty of human consciousness -- greater than any paltry, pouch-sized cosmos! -- and an undeniable assertion of its significance in his own life. And yet. And yet, where did his talent come from? He cannot tell, he tells us.

Carrying forward the thought of your earlier post, about the possibility of the Divine in his thought, and using his own very image of surpassing even the cosmos, it would seem that here is yet another indication that in some way he thinks of the entirety of existence as being larger than merely the lives we live here. All expressed in an almost unnoticeable, but overwhelming, six lines of his writing.

Véra was once quoted as saying (paraphrased) that notions of the Divine run through all of all of her husband's writing, not just his poetry. I am beginning to believe her.

pontalba

12th October 2006, 22:17

Véra was once quoted as saying (paraphrased) that notions of the Divine run through all of all of her husband's writing, not just his poetry. I am beginning to believe her.

And that is probably the hopeful/longing quality that so characterizes Nabokov's work. The searching.
In his first line of the book...The cradle rocks above an abyss......He highlights the fragility of life....and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light...so short lived.... between two eternities of darkness.Dark only because we will/do not shine the light there.

dogmatix

15th October 2006, 19:55

I've just finished...... Wonderful. Thanks for the recommendtion Pontalba

On the vein of the Divine, the bigger picture, spirituality; look at how he describes love

"Whenever I start thinking of my love for a person, I am in the habit of immediately drawing radii from my love-from my heart, from the tender nucleus of a personal matter-to monstously remote points of the universe. ...whose remoteness seems a form of insanity"

Definitely thought there was something out there bigger than him.

And by the way it breaks my heart to read about the love he and Vera had for their son.

This will NOT be my last Nabokov!

Paul

15th October 2006, 22:45

And by the way it breaks my heart to read about the love he and Vera had for their son.

This will NOT be my last Nabokov!
Dogmatix,
That is absolutely the most heart-stealing scene of the whole book for me, when Vera is standing in the cold with her son on the railroad overpass, shifting her weight from foot to foot to stay warm, waiting patiently as her son waits patiently to see the train signal change, or the train to come, while Vladimir looks at the whole scene and one can just imagine the depth of his love for Vera, showing such a depth of patient love for their only child and the son he also loves so much.

Welcome to the club! YAY!
I hope there may never be a last Nabokov for you! :)

pontalba

15th October 2006, 23:18

Oh dogmatix! I am so glad you enjoyed him so much. Really and truly! :D And I fully agree, may there never be a last Nabokov!

His books can be reread and enjoyed over and over again, because there is always another layer to discover and explore. You may and will enjoy some more than others, but will always need to go back for more. :ob_cool:

dogmatix

15th October 2006, 23:50

Yes, well I will certainly re-read this one. It's really an autobiography second to so much else. It's a treatsie on the creative process, the immeasurable depths of the mind and thought, memory (of course) and how it shapes us and we it (He says something towards the end about how he has tried not to create but narrate his memories) and at the end it becomes very apparent it is a love story.

Paul

16th October 2006, 20:43

YAY!....

pontalba

16th October 2006, 23:13

VN really treads the line between revealing his life and maintaining his privacy. And yes, it is a love story to his family. I love the way he addresses and refers to Vera as 'You'.

Because to him, she is the only You.

Paul

16th October 2006, 23:55

. . . and at the end it becomes very apparent it is a love story.
Yes indeed! And love stories knock me over, every time. :)

muggle not

19th October 2006, 21:51

dogmatix

20th October 2006, 04:13

You little monkey. ;)

I try:smile2:

muggle not

24th October 2006, 13:55

Actually, I thought it was very touching when the girl, Colette, kissed him on impulse when they were at the beach and on impulse he said "You little monkey", not knowing how to respond. It showed great affection the way he defended Colette on numerous occassions when they were vacationing as children at Biarritz.

pontalba

24th October 2006, 15:46

dogmatix

27th October 2006, 13:49

I loved that bit too muggle, it was beautiful. And when he sees her for the last time in Paris, I remember thinking how Nabokov really loves and more importantly likes women. I always feel that he held women in awe a bit. He was a sensualist to the Nth degree and almost worshiped women, but in a good way.
:I-Agree: That is an excellent description and really hits the nail on he head. Muggle you've got a little VN in you don't ya?

So Pontalba I won't be ready for a while (got several others screeming to be read) but what book should be next in my VN journey?

pontalba

27th October 2006, 17:33

:I-Agree: That is an excellent description and really hits the nail on he head. Muggle you've got a little VN in you don't ya?

So Pontalba I won't be ready for a while (got several others screeming to be read) but what book should be next in my VN journey?

Dogmatix, I have thought about that, and you could go a couple of different ways, one being to start at the beginning with Mary then King, Queen, Knave and down the chronological line. That is what I decided to do and I am enjoying myself, BUT OTOH.....
You could read The Real Life of Sebastian Knight which is Nabokov's first novel written in English, a sort of detective story about a writer that is dead. A quest by his half brother to find the real brother, with a twist--of course. :mrgreen:
Or, Pnin a story about a professor that is a bit like Nabokov himself, but not. Timofey Pnin was one of Nabokov's most charming and sweet natured characters.......ever. He is in fact my favorite character in any Nabokov novel so far.

If I have to recommend only one.....it'd be a toss up between The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Pnin. Weighted in favor of Pnin.

I hope that helps.

muggle not

27th October 2006, 18:49

What are your thoughts on going straight to Lolita??? :readingtwo:

I am about finished with Speak, Memory.

dogmatix

27th October 2006, 19:14

Dogmatix, I have thought about that, and you could go a couple of different ways, one being to start at the beginning with Mary then King, Queen, Knave and down the chronological line. That is what I decided to do and I am enjoying myself, BUT OTOH.....
You could read The Real Life of Sebastian Knight which is Nabokov's first novel written in English, a sort of detective story about a writer that is dead. A quest by his half brother to find the real brother, with a twist--of course. :mrgreen:
Or, Pnin a story about a professor that is a bit like Nabokov himself, but not. Timofey Pnin was one of Nabokov's most charming and sweet natured characters.......ever. He is in fact my favorite character in any Nabokov novel so far.

If I have to recommend only one.....it'd be a toss up between The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Pnin. Weighted in favor of Pnin.

I hope that helps.

How completely decisive of you:friends0: BTW got to play with some more lions the other day.

pontalba

27th October 2006, 19:32

Lions! Ohhh, pictures? Gotta love any cat, big or small. I remember years ago, there was some silly movie on tv, something to do with Africa, and animals taking over (hah, maybe they'd do a better job), but all I remember of the whole thing is this house being taken over by lions and after they broke down the shutters and got into the house, they were in the kitchen and the way they leapt up on the counter and tables was so....well just like our little kitty kats...funny to see the same movements translated into huge size. :smile2:
Re the Nabokov, let me know which one you decide, maybe another thread is in our future.....I'll post a review of Pnin I wrote in the Reviews section here.

pontalba

27th October 2006, 19:40

What are your thoughts on going straight to Lolita??? :readingtwo:

I am about finished with Speak, Memory.
Ah, well there is that wonderful possibility as well muggle! Now that you know Nabokov a bit, I think it is a great idea. :mrgreen:
But dogmatix did say she'd tried Lolita and didn't care for it. As it happens Lolita was the first Nabokov I read. Of course the thread on B&R, but there was a previous thread on another forum that introduced me to her. To me, Nabokov's writing is addictive.

dogmatix

28th October 2006, 06:05

Paul

28th October 2006, 11:45

Continuing pontalba's earlier thought, I would think that the story of Pnin was not intimidating -- a gentle, cuddly, teddy-bear of a man making his way through life among friends and not-so-much-friends. With Sebastian Knight being, in effect, Nabokov's gentler version of a detective story -- having a corpse but no killer, for example. I think I have to agree that, for a variety of reasons, they are both more approachable than Lolita, whose fame must at least rest in part upon its boldness.

pontalba

28th October 2006, 15:20

I do think If I'd warmed up with something else VN irst I may have enjoyed Lolita more. I just felt over my head and couldn't appreciate the book. I knew it was something great but I just wasn't up to par. Would have been a great college read and I may yet read it again once my level of sophistication rises to a more appropriate level.

Plus the B&R thread was too intimidating.

AWK!!:eek2: That thread was the most fun I'd had on a forum!
And more insight into Lolita than I ever could have imagined on my own. :D

Really Timofey Pnin is the antithesis to Humbert Humbert. :)

pontalba

28th October 2006, 15:25

...........Lolita, whose fame must at least rest in part upon its boldness.

Without a doubt. :readingtwo:

dogmatix

29th October 2006, 00:32

AWK!!:eek2: That thread was the most fun I'd had on a forum!
And more insight into Lolita than I ever could have imagined on my own. :D

Really Timofey Pnin is the antithesis to Humbert Humbert. :)

Don't get me wrong it did look fun just, a bit intimidating to the uninitiated. Now that I'm such a VN EXPERT:lol: I could rock on that thread!!!!;)

pontalba

29th October 2006, 01:38

Don't get me wrong it did look fun just, a bit intimidating to the uninitiated. Now that I'm such a VN EXPERT:lol: I could rock on that thread!!!!;)

That's right! :doowapstart:

Paul

29th October 2006, 02:33

I could rock on that thread!!!!;)

.....................:yeahthat:

Never doubted it for a minute! :D

muggle not

30th October 2006, 03:49

Don't get me wrong it did look fun just, a bit intimidating to the uninitiated. Now that I'm such a VN EXPERT:lol: I could rock on that thread!!!!;)
Oh heck, you could "rock" anywhere. :D

I finished Speak, Memory tonight. Enjoyed the book but I do feel intimidated like some others did.:blush:

pontalba

30th October 2006, 04:40

I finished Speak, Memory tonight. Enjoyed the book but I do feel intimidated like some others did.:blush:
Muggle, I am really happy that you enjoyed Speak, Memory, so in liking it, there was a connection, so why intimidated? Color me dense, but I don't understand.
To me Nabokov is a lot of things.....an intensely loving family man first and foremost...that colors everything in his life, he is passionate about his art, a sensualist by nature, used his marvelous sense of humor in ways other authors only dream of.....but intimidating? Oh, and I forgot, high-handed as the day is long. :mrgreen:

And it's nothing to :blush: over either. Everyone is so different, even if tastes happen to coincide in places, it won't everywhere, even the very best of friends can't always agree.
After all, I couldn't get into your favorite.....Steinbeck, so.....:)

Paul

30th October 2006, 08:20

I wonder too. :confused:
I certainly hope nobody is feeling intimidated here. Let that stay over there by all means!
And let's try to capture the friendliness over here on this side.
So, why "intimidated?"

muggle not

30th October 2006, 14:34

Muggle, I am really happy that you enjoyed Speak, Memory, so in liking it, there was a connection, so why intimidated? Color me dense, but I don't understand.
To me Nabokov is a lot of things.....an intensely loving family man first and foremost...that colors everything in his life, he is passionate about his art, a sensualist by nature, used his marvelous sense of humor in ways other authors only dream of.....but intimidating? Oh, and I forgot, high-handed as the day is long. :mrgreen:

And it's nothing to :blush: over either. Everyone is so different, even if tastes happen to coincide in places, it won't everywhere, even the very best of friends can't always agree.
After all, I couldn't get into your favorite.....Steinbeck, so.....:)

I wonder too. :confused:
I certainly hope nobody is feeling intimidated here. Let that stay over there by all means!
And let's try to capture the friendliness over here on this side.
So, why "intimidated?"
I do agree with the friendliness here. I don't believe I have been on any forum that is as friendly as this one. However, I was never intimidated by the "child" on the other place. :mrgreen:

I enjoyed the Nabokov book but I guess I was intimidated a little by his writing. I came to like Nabokov as a person and certainly as a writer, but kept feeling that I was inadequate in understanding all that he was saying in his book. In other words I felt that there was much more to his writings than I was grasping.............am I making any sense at all.

Paul

30th October 2006, 14:57

........am I making any sense at all.
Muggle not,
Yes you are. However, I've just been content to grasp what I can and enjoy that much. I find him enjoyable enough at that level.

pontalba

30th October 2006, 16:03

However, I was never intimidated by the "child" on the other place. :mrgreen:

That is good to know. Really.:D

Originally posted by muggle not ........but kept feeling that I was inadequate in understanding all that he was saying in his book. In other words I felt that there was much more to his writings than I was grasping.............
LOL Muggle, that is par for the course with Nabokov, I know I don't get every nuance, but the more of him you read, the more is understood and the more it is enjoyed. He can be enjoyed on any and all levels, either the first couple or even deeper.

For example right now I am rereading Laughter in the Dark, his 6th novel...I'd decided to read them in order and had read this one awhile back, but thought I'd go ahead and reread. I am getting more out of it, and immediately having these "Ah Ha!" moments that I just plowed through before. And I certainly enjoyed reading it the first time, but even more this time.
Originally posted by muggle not....................am I making any sense at all.

Loads of sense muggle, in fact right on target. :smile2:
The thing is with Nabokov, especially in his later books....he obliquely refers to other of his books, or his life, so there are definite connections between books.
That's why I thought Speak, Memory would be a good one to start with, as then you have certain references to work with when you read other of his books.