Will I love Speak, Memory?

This classic book, unlike others in the list, is not so much about memory, as a collection of the author’s memories of his childhood and early years.

Nabokov was born into a wealthy family in pre-Revolutionary Russia in 1899. His childhood in St. Petersburg and at the family’s country estate are described in loving detail, as are aspects of later years in England, Germany, and France. Nabokov was one of the great writers of the 20th Century, and the memories are recounted in his glowing and evocative prose.

His writing is nostalgic, but also wryly humorous, aware that many aspects… show more.

Exquisite writing Nabokov-style would be enough of a reason to put this book, seen by some as one of the most influential books of all times, at the top of my list.

Speak, Memory was assembled from short stories that were published first separately, without any indication that they were autobiographical. This memoir was born literary, even as it contains fascinating historical details about Russia before the Russian Revolution. Nabokov does not betray his longing for this lost world even as he reconstructs it in meticulous and vivid details.

The political aspect, although so important for a writer whose family… show more.

Nabokov's ability to catch and pin ephemeral ideas provides sumptuous reflections in this prism of his analytic perception. Speak, Memory is a ludic, linguistic, conjuring of memories. The chapters were written on different occasions and collated for this purpose. He even wrote an extra Chapter (16) as an anonymous reviewer, explaining "He (Nabokov) is out to prove that his childhood contained, on a much-reduced scale, the main components of his creative maturity; thus, through the thin sheath of a ripe chrysalis one can see, in its small wing cases, the dawning of color and pattern, a miniature revelation of the… show more.

Out of all Vladimir Nabokov’s books, Speak Memory -- this rebellion “against the two eternities of darkness which bookend a human life” -- is the one I return to most often.  Exiled and dispossessed by the Russian Revolution of 1917, Nabokov manages to escape the snares of nostalgia. He does not grieve the lost past, but revisits the very heart of his Russia, the people, the sites, the tastes of his childhood and adolescence. Speak Memory does not end with exile. Nabokov chronicles the lives of the Russian emigres in Berlin and Paris, the necessary adjustments and transformations of… show more.