I finally FINALLY finished this book.  I’m not ashamed to say that I skimmed some of the end.  The part about chess was mostly confusing to me.  If I wanted to learn about chess, I could have slowed down but I didn’t.

As Eliana and I took our sweet time to finish this we have talked about it at the gym (or the Y–but not the bYu).  We decided that his final chapters were not as interesting because we weren’t as interested in Nabokov as an adult.  Too much Brideshead going on in all the class skipping and declarations of his own genius.  The beautiful and nostalgic descriptions of his childhood seemed more forgivable and relatable.

I also did not like the last chapter about his wife and son.  I could have used a chapter–perhaps something instead of the boring political/college/chess chapter–about his wife.  I think knowing something about her before the last chapter could have connected me more and I would have appreciated the last bit.  I did think of Teddy and his dad when I read the part about the train, though.

I really loved the chapter about his relationship with his father.  Though very sad that his dad was killed very young, I wonder if the worshipful attitude Nabokov has toward his father isn’t a product of his father’s early death.  He never had the chance to see him as an adult through adult eyes.  His judgements and observations only ever came from a child.  I also thought it very funny that Nabokov never wanted to be a part of the extracurriculars at school which he contrasts against his father being involved in everything:  “I viewed his activities through a prism of my own, which split into many enchanting colors . . .”

I liked reading the part about the duel also.  Count Bezhukov (sp?) from WAR AND PEACE is also a dueler.  I think he is involved in some way in 3 duels during the book.  He doesn’t seem to learn.  In some ways it seems like a fair way to settle a situation–there is very little burden on society.  In other ways, it seems ridiculous.

His introduction to the pedestrian world through his rambunctious cousin Yuri was interesting too.  One thing I don’t like about Nabokov (or any other memoirist thus far, for that matter) is his condescending tone.  I get that he’s probably a lot smarter than the rest of us but he’s supposedly writing to be read by us so maybe he shouldn’t remind us about how wonderful he is.

And my last comment–my last dog-eared page–he talks about how as an emigre the aborigines in Paris and Germany felt like shadows to his people–the exiled intellectuals of Russia–apparently the only Russians worth a rubel.  I’m sure the transitory populations of intellectual Russians felt much like a band of shadows to the French and Germans.  I had to wonder if we don’t have people in our midst who aren’t just fringy shadows in our lives–like the Marines here in Yuma.  For the most part, we don’t really have anything to do with them.  We know they’re there but they won’t really exist in our lives as more than a vague memory somewhere in the everydayness of our lives in Yuma.

• He starts going to public school in 8th grade?  Who came up with that brilliant idea?
• I love the description of his drive to school, everything he passes.  I like the idea of writing a map sort of description–I have so many memories of the bike path we walked on to every day of elementary school
• “all the private jokes which is the secret code of happy families.”  So true!  One of the things I miss about being with my siblings is the short hand we have from so much shared experience.
• The boy read WAR AND PEACE for the first time at age 11.  I feel ever worse about abandoning Jenna on her quest.
• And finally, a lovely description.  That is where Nabokov excels.  “A sunset, almost formidable in its splendor, would be lingering in the fully exposed sky.”

I’m about 1/2 way through with chapter 6. I’m moving right along. Slow and steady?

This is for you Eliana since I hear you have a penchant for hyperbole: “[Mademoiselle] is cold, she is frozen stiff, frozen ‘to the center of her brain’–for she soars with the wildest hyperbole when not tagging after the most pedestrian dictum” (page 99).

Interestingly, I don’t think Nabokov really liked Mademoiselle but he never speaks of her as if she was the evil, uptight school marm that she probably was.  He gives her so much more depth and width (he he he) by discussing her motivations for crankiness and by allowing that he may have been naughtier with her than he should have been.

Chapter 5 really left me feeling an urgency to live and love the “now.”  I felt very sad for Mademoiselle when she got pushed out by the other tutor who was mean to her.  And I felt sad when Nabokov describes her old age in Switzerland with all the other past-prime nannies: “Huddled together in a constant seething of competitive reminiscences . . .”  And then the metaphor in which he compares her to the aged swan that can’t get into the boat but he flaps and sputters around it anyway.  It must be so terrible to become obsolete.

Syncopal and Eschewing

Syncopal = omission of letters or sounds from the middle of a word–bos’n for boatswain–I’m not sure I knew this was an English word.  It is a very common technique in Spanish poetry.  Often they use it to give double meanings to words.

Eschewing = avoid, shun

Don’t hate me, women, but I finished the book. I’m not like Jenna, who is busy packing or Eliana, who reads more than one book at a time. I had to finish this before I started another. I’m sorry I’m sorry!

I have to say, though, THANK YOU! If it hadn’t been for our “book club” I don’t think I would have taken on Speak, Memory. And I’m so glad I did. I agree with Jenna’s recent post about his memories and how they are “vivid, coherent, and meaningful.” So true! I just wrote a short goodreads review of Speak, Memory, and I used the word “vivid,” too (and that was before I read this blog).

I love his family pride, too! I’m glad the book (my copy, at least) contains so many photos because I feel genuinely connected to these people. After reading the chapter about little Nabokov and his father, I especially love the picture of the two of them together, with Vladimir in a little sailor suit. I think his father is *sexy* I mean, look how he loves his son–and he also got assassinated for political reasons . . . now, THAT is a man!

What I will take away from Speak, Memory and what I will think of often are: his winter scenes, his pride in and love for his family, and his descriptions of Polenka, their head coachman’s daughter. It is too bad that Nabokov is so well-known for Lolita (which is very good, too!). Most people only know what Lolita is “about” and are probably afraid to read it, much less anything else by Nabokov.

When are we going to have a face-to-face chat about this book? Chili’s anyone?

Chapter Nine: I love how Nabokov feels family pride, not just in his own parents (his dad in this chapter) but all of his family history.  I could do better at touting the marginally interesting elements of my relations.

My used copy of the book has been violently underlined.  So many times I don’t have any idea why the person chose to underline what he/she did.  Since the book is already marked up, I’ve been writing in it so I can remember what I wanted to talk about here at Middlemarchers.  I’ve noticed that I like the poetry.

Anyway . . . I always think that his memories of his childhood are so vivid, coherent, and meaningful.  I suppose some of that comes with reflection and revisions and another part comes from his genius.  Most of my childhood memories are fuzzy images of the carefree-ness of the good old days or of the bondage of having parents.  Not very much of it carries meaning–unless I think about it really hard.  Then the meaning comes out through my adult self and I’m sure it isn’t the same meaning it had for me when I was living it.

I just read his description of his slow, reluctant meander at bedtime–very perfect and poetic.  My favorite line was on page 83: “With every new summer, the process of squeezing through [the posts in the banister] became more difficult; nowadays, even my ghost would get stuck.”

Purblind and Ghyll–if I’m going to be the only one to look up words . . .

Purblind–dimsighted

Ghyll–a woody glen

As you know, my brother-in-law, Errol, is a Princeton grad student. I just saw some pictures (taken by a classmate, on Facebook of course) of some of their doings on campus. Don’t you wish we could all be hip, intellectual Princeton grad students. Seriously! I sometimes really wish I could devote more time to “studying” literature and learning . . . . Ah, well. Instead I’ve been cleaning and doing laundry all morning and reading books to my kids in between chores. Maybe THEY will grow up to be hip intellectual grad students!

PS Teddy got his hair cut yesterday. I think it makes him look more Russian!

Saundra went through the book and compiled a list of words she didn’t know–or maybe she knew them but not in the context.  She also put the definitions with the words but then lost the document.  We’re lucky to just have this list! 

I thought that maybe we could go through it and each find the definitions of 2-3 words each time we make a post.

Syncopal; eschewing; synesthesia; aquarelle; cuirass; coeval; frass; teleological; montane; retiary; turgenevian; boles; dipterist; tabands; lepidopteron; anastomosis; nictitating; quiddity; plage; purblind; oriel; desmans; massacrous; cacologist; hiemal; hyperborean; lamels; debile; ghyll; gouache; cordate; volutes; apotheosized; laciniate; concolorous; escarpment; atlantes; porphyry; racemosa; karakul; miraged; oasal; Cynara; chamfrained; cant; gloriettes; inanition; forestalled; palindromic; intrados; mystagogues; incunabula; alacritous; vitiated; saxifrages; pleached; arbutus; scintillation; majolica; apotheosis; perspicacity; solecisms; oneiromancy; platitudinous; Zeitgeist.

I know, you all have the same book, but I am going to copy this part down because I like it and would like you to all think about it.  And them comment on how true it is.  And how smart I am for noting it.  So here’s the first paragraph of chapter five:

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.  Although it lingered on in my mind, its personal warmth, its retrospective appeal had gone and, presently, it became more closely identified with my novel than with my former self, where it had seemed so safe from the intrusion of the artist.

Funny, I don’t really look forward to picking up this book. I never think, “Ooooh! Time to go read Speak, Memory!” But, once I start, I can’t put it down . . . and sometimes I think this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I love love love his descriptions of snow and winter. I love thinking of cold Russians in their snowy sleighs and fur muffs. There’s a scene in a Willa Cather novel (I think My Antonia), where a Russian immigrant tells the story of a wedding party traveling through the snow in sleighs. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? It’s a rather dramatic scene, and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone if you plan to read that book . . . . Anyway, I love Russian snow scenes.

I just finished his chapter on butterflies. I confess, I’m not that interested in butterflies. But I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, like when he says something about the older the man, the stranger he looks with a butterfly net. So, Nabokov is both a genius writer (seriously!) and funny.

Oh, and here’s the part where I pine for the past . . . . A couple of years ago I read Lolita, which I loved. Like Speak, Memory, it is very beautifully written. I read somewhere that Nabokov wrote Lolita to show the contrast between America (The New World) and Russian/Europe (The Old World). That’s probably true. The part of Speak, Memory when he traces his family tree all the way back to the 14th Century: wow! Sometimes I wish I lived in Europe where they have so much history. I love the new library of course, and I love Chili’s and a shiny new Target. But, I often wish for a older environment, more steeped in history. Like the Old World.