Speak, Memory

An autobiographical book written during the author’s migration to the United States.

“Other Shores” is Nabokov’s memoirs, in which he resurrects his past—from the first sensations of infancy to the birth of his son. In these memories, he ties together all the signs and images that appeared to him in childhood and youth, and considers how these images changed and refracted later. These memoirs are filled with great tenderness for the past. Everything that formed the center of a child’s life survives only in his memory—and in Nabokov’s remembrances there is always a fracture from the loss of that life and those people. Nabokov carefully approaches the work of a memoirist, combining documentary details with childhood sensations, fears and joys, dreams, daydreams, and visions. It is a careful reconstruction—a resurrection of what was lost in all its fullness.