Speak, memory, by Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov’s poetic gifts are very evident in his famous memoir of growing up in an upper-class Russian family in the years just prior to the Russian Revolution, and his life as an exile up until around 1940.  Published in 1951, the book is actually comprised of many shorter pieces many of which were published independently in various journals and magazine.  For example, the first piece was originally written and published in French in 1936, then translated into English, and ultimately became chapter five of the book.  Nabokov wrote Edmund Wilson in 1947 saying, “I am writing…..a new type of autobiography – a scientific attempt to unravel and trace back all the tangled threads of one’s personality….”  261 pp.