Review of "Speak, Memory" by Vladimir Nabokov

[@abdiawl736]

welcome back to booktube John and thanks for this lucid and fascinating review

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

Thank you for the kind words, Abdi. Are you in Hargeisa (I saw the video on your channel)? It's so nice to see that my reviews are being seen in such diverse places as Somaliland.

[@bma1955alimarber]

bravo! very interesting and inspiring

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

Inspiring?

[@lohkoon]

Most of his novels are compendiums of puzzles, riddles, puns, impressions, problems and patterns. He can bore you with his countless solutions and discoveries. He can turn you off with his show-off big words like EUNUCHOID and ANASTOMOSIS. There is something Joycean about his horrible fondness for picking just about anything that interests him. Nabokov avoids politics and morals, two critical ingredients in modern writing. He hates Freud but he loves commenting on sex. (Lolita is Freud's revenge on Nabokov.) He writes well; he thinks badly.

[@furiosaningveryserious7104]

Hello, I took a glance at this memoir, despite the stylish prose that he wants to achieve, I feel it is written in such a dry and dull manner. It’s not gripping . I am not sure if I am right. 🤔🤔I feel his prose is sort of like an old Edwardian but in a dry stick way. Not poetic. But I only read few pages.

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

I'm not sure "right" and "wrong" are really the appropriate adjectives for aesthetic judgments. It either did something for you or not - in which case, off to the next book. :) That having been said, Nabokov is known for his dense, ludic wordplay and puns which can sometimes get tiresome. I understand what you're saying, certainly.

[@furiosaningveryserious7104]

John David it could be the fact that I did not read from a close range. I have to suspend my Judgment. However, to my own surprise, I do partially agree with him on Dostoevsky. 😂😂😂 I just feel Dostoevsky likes to put all the maniac and emotionally over the top characters in the same setting in brother karamazov, they all share the same temperament from the colonel to the kid. Is it normal ? Cowper powyer said he penetrates psychology. Is that so ? Or it’s just mentally ill people “s psychology ? I can sympathize those turbulent emotions becuz we were all young at once. But I don’t know if neurosis was mistaken as genius ?? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[@furiosaningveryserious7104]

He didn’t like Dostoevsky either.

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

How dare he.

[@67Parsifal]

I read Look At The Harlequins a couple of months ago and it put me off Nabokov for life. 'Pretentious' doesn't begin to describe the puffed-up arsehole he comes across as.

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

I'd suggest reading something which has a bit more name recognition: Pnin, Pale Fire, Lolita, etc. It still occasionally reads like he has someone to impress, but at least with those novels, he's actually *being* impressive instead of just farting into the wind.

[@67Parsifal]

I read Laughter In The Dark earlier in the year and liked it a lot but I know that's an early novel and was originally written in Russian. Judging from other readers, the puffed-up persona encountered in ...Harlequins seems to have emerged following the massive success of Lolita. ....Harlequins may actually count as the worst book I've ever read. If I'd been given it with a blank cover, I'd have guessed it was the work of some puerile scion of a noble house desperate to impress the world after failing his Oxbridge entrance exam (and I'd be half-right!).

[@NicholasOfAutrecourt]

I doubt he ever failed many tests, but you'd have few qualms with "puerile scion of a noble house."

[@eddampier]

Unfortunately this is probably his weakest book, written in the years before his death when his powers were failing, and also written with the dubious aim of taking a potshot at his biographer (Andrew Field) who he had fallen out with. I suggest Pnin, Lolita and Pale Fire...