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The late Vladimir Nabokov always did things his way, and his classic autobiography is no exception. No dry recital of dates, names, and addresses for this linguistic magician--instead, Speak, Memory is a succession of lapidary episodes, in which the factoids play second fiddle to the development of Nabokov's sensibility. There is, to be sure, an impressionistic whirl through the author's family history (including a gallery of Tartar princes and fin-de-siècle oddities). And Nabokov's account of his tenure at St. Petersburg's famous Tenishev School--where he counted Osip Mandelstam among his schoolmates--offers a lovely glimpse into the heart of Russia's silver age. Still, Nabokov is much too artful an autobiographer to present Speak, Memory as a slice of reality--a word, by the way, that he insisted must always be surrounded by quotation marks.
Book Description
Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as
Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including
Lolita,
Pnin,
Despair,
The Gift,
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and
The Defense.
Customer Reviews:
Cultured Discourse.......2007-08-13
In Speak, Memory, Nabokov, who is known for crafting memorable sentences in his novels, attempts to apply his abilities to a story that mirrors all the elegance of the New York telephone directory. And he comes up short.
If you open the book to any page, you are likely to recognize his rich writing style:
"This final dachshund followed us into exile, and as late as 1930, in a suburb of Prague (where my widowed mother spent her last years on a small pension provided by the Czech government), he could still be seen going for reluctant walks with his mistress, waddling far behind in a huff, tremendously old and furious with his long Czech muzzle of wire - an émigré dog in a patched and ill-fitting coat."
But you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Two stars for effort.
Bewitching. .......2007-01-15
Personally, I like everything Nabokov did if only because reading him makes me a better writer. He is a "master stylist" cut from the cloth of James Joyce (in terms of his innovation and talent) who challenges his audience at every turn. When devouring his fiction, I am sure that there are many things I miss due to my being no great genius of literary analysis, but time with Nabokov is invariably time well spent. I make a point of circling those lines and turns of phrase which are strikingly original in the hopes that my own skills improve via his brilliant examples. I do the same thing with vocabulary words which was particularly the case with Speak, Memory as I bracketed off those terms with which I am not familiar. Thus, it seems that studying Nabokov is an essential tutorial for the aspiring writer. This, his autobiography, is absolutely charming and easily accessible for those readers intimidated by his other works. The author describes his early life in Russia--and vicariously, life in Tsarist Russia in general--and provides us with a captivating history of his family. Unfortunately, I found that it ended too soon. I longed for another 200 pages so his development as a novelist could be more fully explored. Nabokov, like so many writers, appears to have been the quintessential introvert and his environmental struggles are quite compelling. This is an astounding work that should be consulted repeatedly.
Perhaps The Greatest Autobiography You'll Ever Read.......2006-09-18
I re-read SPEAK, MEMORY once a year or so; on every occasion I am left in awe of Nabokov's skill as a prose stylist, and am dazzled by the memories he re-creates here.
This is notable as the work of a writer of astounding technical skill and erudition, but also the work of someone who has a well-formed regard for his audience. At the very least, Nabokov expects that his audience will also be very intelligent.
Thus, what we are left with here is something far beyond a typical "self-portrait at 20," instead we are left with recollections reframed, recalled and rendered with an adamantine clarity that shimmers and dazzles - after reading the descriptions of a youth spent on a Russian estate one can smell the frost in the air, note the detail on the wings of the butterflies oft referenced, or almost see the long, northern latitude sunsets for yourself.
Technically formidable, engrossing and magical - this is one of very few books that I think everyone should read once.
-David Alston
Nostalgic & Brilliantly Written.......2006-07-30
It is known that the great author worked on this project for many years, collecting photographs, letters, scraps of unfinished poetry, searching his past in order to write a close to accurate account of his early life. In fact this autobiography is atypical, similar to a wandering mind, grasping at images, sights and smells, recollections, reminisces, rather than a chronological,'factual' version of a life lived.
The opening sentence of Speak, Memory, to my mind, is probably one of the most moving and haunting recollections in an autobiography ever read:
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."
The narrator continues on to describe a young chronophobiac who experienced panic when he viewed an old home movie, seeing his mother wave from an upstairs window and below, a brand-new baby carriage standing alone, realizing that the carriage was his own days before his actual birth. This disturbed him as the feeling of peering at a world days before he came into existence, sort of a reverse course of events, was akin to staring directly into eternity.
Nabokov's childhood and adolescence was an enchanting one, part of an aristocratic family, a beautiful mother and a liberal-minded father who had a vast library, where little Vladimir would arrive home to find him practicing his fencing, the clanging of blades, with a colleague. This was a civilized existence in St. Petersburg before the onslaught of the Russian Revolution. Similar to most aristocratic families at the time, the Bolsheviks seized the family fortune, forcing the family to flee their beloved Russia to Germany. But when Nabokov looks back at this tumultuous period, he says,
"My old (since 1917) quarrel with the Soviet Dictatorship is wholly unrelated to any question of property. The nostalgia I have been cherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes."
The book is strewn with old black and white photographs of Nabokov's family. There is one particular photograph of his father and mother taken circa 1900 at their estate at Vrya, which really depicts the aristocratic demeanour and pure strength of the author's father. In the background are the birches and firs of the countryside where Nabokov discovered his life-long passion with butterfly collecting.
Even if the reader is not familiar with the great novels of Nabokov: Lolita, Pale Fire, The Eye and many others, will certainly enjoy this unique and brilliantly written autobiography by one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
Astonishing.......2006-07-09
This is the way memoirs ought to be written. Nabokov takes the reader on a journey of the senses, of the dim and yet luminous memories of a childhood, through the eyes of a genius with an unprecedented attention for detail. Nabokov does not walk us through every relationship, every transition, etc. Rather, he gathers and recollects the memories of color, of feeling, and learning that are most important to him. There are remarkable passages in this text, including remarkably varied intellectual topics, i.e.: literature, politics, chess, mathematics, lepidoptery, ect. There is a passage on camoflauge and Nabokov's suspicion of Darwinian evolution that I love:
"Natural selection, in the Darwinian sense, would not explain the miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect and imitative behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of `the struggle for life' when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator's power of appreciation. I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception" (pg. 125).
And so too is, `Speak Memory' a nonutilitarian delight. It is a magical work of enormous imaginative and evocative energy.
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Speak, Memory an Autobiography Revisited
Manufacturer: G. P. Putnam's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Nabokov, Vladimir
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ASIN: B000I3JQ68 |
Average customer rating:
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Speak, Memory an Autobiography Revisited
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: G. P. Putnam's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Nabokov, Vladimir
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ASIN: B000RMT24G |
Book Description
Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?
Turn to "Nonfiction Classics for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: a summary of the work; analysis of key figures; author biography; an overview of the work's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; compare-and-contrast commentary; suggestions for further reading; and much more.
Why choose "Nonfiction Classics for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Nonfiction Classics for Students."
Download Description
Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?
Turn to "Nonfiction Classics for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: a summary of the work; analysis of key figures; author biography; an overview of the work's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; compare-and-contrast commentary; suggestions for further reading; and much more.
Why choose "Nonfiction Classics for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: The Gale Group--and "Nonfiction Classics for Students."
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Speak, Memory. An Autobiography Revisited
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Quality Paperback Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Nabokov, Vladimir
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ASIN: B000NUURAA |
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Benjamin Lincoln and the American Revolution
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Customer Reviews:
Gives right wing way too much credit.......2006-09-28
There is actually a lot of interesting historical information for the right-of-center reader who wants to learn about the right-wing/Republican successes in bolstering its face time in the American media.
But it's a tough read because Brock is obviously extremely skeptical of pretty much everything that comes out of the mouth of anyone who votes Republican.
Brock hurts his credibility early on when he states flat out that his early conservative writings were actually literary regurgitations of the right wing party line. But what's to keep a reader from viewing this book as just a left-wing version of the same?
I think he could have balanced the book by discussing more specific left-of-center successes. Whenever he does mention the left-wing in the media, it's usually in lofty platitudes about their objectivity and non-partisanship (trust me, Brock really believes this).
He seems to think the left-wing is totally helpless in the face of the right-wing media juggernaut. Does anyone in America actually believe that?
This book has the potential to be an informative read (it's over 400 pages), but it too often lapses into name calling, unsubstantiated generalizations, and conspiratorial excess.
Leave the wild rhetoric to Michael Moore and just give us the facts.
A gripping read and an excellent reference work.......2006-06-17
First, the downsides: Brock's book is lengthy, dense, and involves a huge cast of characters which is sometimes difficult to keep straight.
Aside from this, his book is brilliant--a gripping and horrifying read, meticulously researched (unlike, say, Ann Coulter's screeds), and an excellent reference resource.
Brock's site, Mediamatters.org, is a bastion of journalistic integrity; this book goes a step futher, putting neocon hogwash into historical perspective.
For anyone who still believes the "liberal media" lie, this book will act as a harsh antiseptic.
A hell of a good read.
Unbelievably simplistic.......2006-05-24
For some reason, Amazon deleted my earlier review, although it was not obscene or offensive. So I'll restate it in really simple terms:
David Brock contends that critics of the mainstream media are all narrow-minded conservatives who simply don't want to read about social trends they don't like. This is nonsense. You don't have to agree with the Christian right - I certainly don't - in order to perceive liberal bias in the media. I would give some examples, but I'd probably get censored again.
An Important and Fascinating Book.......2006-05-21
David Brock provides example after example of how the right wingers created a ruthless propaganda machine designed to catapult them into power and keep them there. He speaks with authority on the subject, given his previous "membership" in the machine, involvement with the projects designed to destroy Anita Hill and Bill Clinton, and close contact with key players in the right wing punditocracy, and the foundations that bankroll them.
What makes this book so good and important is that it is no mere screed; rather, it is heavily documented with example after example,and carefully cites sources. It is also highly readable. Brock is a strong, persuasive writer, which was no doubt one of the reasons he so quickly reached prominence in right wing circles. Now he uses his gifts to expose the rather nefarious methods of those for whom he once worked.
This book will be reviled by Republicans and right wingers, who are becoming more and more indistinct, and is an important, eye-opening resource for the rest of us.
Great Book -- Explains so much.......2006-04-02
David Brock's book points out how, how, over the past 20 years, a wish list of beliefs that the far right wanted to be echoed by mainstream america has been beaten in to the public conversation by a massively financed corporate media -
Think about it: Almost all broadcast news comes from one of six huge conglomerates: Viacom, General Electric's NBC, Time Warner, Disney, Fox NewsCorp, and Clear Channel. A republican controlled congress and White House means tens of billions extra profit for each of these companies via favorable Tax and Deregulation policies. Yet the right would like you to believe that these companies generate liberal spin ?!?! Please.
This is the same "Liberal" media that rapidly labeled 2 tour Vietnam combat veteran John Kerry a coward, and labeled George Bush, the man who went AWOL from a cushy slot in the Texas Air Guard, a gutsy, heroic straight shooter.
This is a great and informative book.
Book Description
In 1861, just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, a scientist named Hermann von Meyer made an amazing discovery. Hidden in the Bavarian region of Germany was a fossil skeleton so exquisitely preserved that its wings and feathers were as obvious as its reptilian jaws and tail. This transitional creature offered tangible proof of Darwin's theory of evolution.
Hailed as the First Bird, Archaeopteryx has remained the subject of heated debates for the last 140 years. Are birds actually living dinosaurs? Where does the fossil record really lead? Did flight originate from the "ground up" or "trees down"? Pat Shipman traces the age-old human desire to soar above the earth and to understand what has come before us. Taking Wing is science as adventure story, told with all the drama by which scientific understanding unfolds.
Customer Reviews:
For all bird watchers and those interested in evolution.......2005-10-26
Very well written tale about the possible ancestor of birds. I should think that even casual bird watchers would enjoy learning the theories of evolution of their favorite creatures. Well researched theories, their plausbility, and their potential flaws are discussed in fabulous and convincing detail.
The first bird, or a feathered reptile?.......2005-02-16
Archaeopteryx has aroused the interest of specialists and the general public alike since its first fossils were discovered in the 1860s, only a short time after The Origin of Species was published, when the excitement raised by Darwin's famous book had by no means died down. Darwin himself had explained that so extremely few individuals become fossils that we cannot expect to find fossils to answer every question about evolution that we might want to ask -- in short, that fossilized links cannot be found to document every postulated transition between one species and another. Nonetheless, there was great interest in the search for "missing links", for example between modern birds and their ancestors. Archaeopteryx seemed at once to supply this link: it had feathers, like a modern bird, and unlike any other modern creature; but it also had teeth, like a dinosaur, but unlike any modern bird.
As Pat Shipman describes in her book, Archaeopteryx appears to answer some questions about the origin of birds, but it also raises and only partially answers numerous other questions. Were the dinosaurs thermoregulators (warm-blooded in everyday terminology), like birds and mammals, or cold-blooded, like reptiles? Could archaeopteryx fly? What function did its feathers fulfil, if not for flying? Archaeopteryx had more than just feathers: its feathers resembled those of flying birds, not those of flightless birds like ostriches, which have lost the capacity to link together to form a coherent surface. If it was cold-blooded, could it have generated enough power to fly significant distances? To put this into perspective, the differences in food requirements between warm- and cold-blooded animals are huge: a 9 ounce (255 gram) mammal or bird needs to eat about 17 times as much food as a lizard of the same size, all of the extra food being necessary to meet the requirements of temperature regulation. Although the argument is not yet over, the conclusion appears to be that Archaeopteryx probably needed to be warm-blooded, and the dinosaurs were probably warm-blooded as well.
The Archaeopteryx fossils attracted accusations of forgery soon after they were first discovered, as they seemed some observers to be too good to be true. These accusations acquired renewed credibility in the 1980s when a group led by the cosmologist Fred Hoyle -- notorious among evolutionists for his attacks on Darwinism -- announced that the feather impressions were faked and that they had found traces of an artificial material "like chewing gum". This was an important accusation, because much of the importance of the fossils lay in the implication that the feathers belonged to the same individual as the rest of the remains. As the book explains, these accusations were taken quite seriously -- after all "lack of expertise does not necessarily disqualify anyone from making acute observations", and a careful outsider may notice important points that have been missed by all the experts -- but were not difficult to refute. Ludicrously, Hoyle and his colleagues apparently carried out their tests without having realized that it is routine practice in museums where fossils are kept to treat them with preservatives to protect them from decay.
As an anthropologist Pat Shipman has a professional interest in fossils, albeit not specifically fossilized birds, and she includes a great deal of technical detail in her book. As a result its conclusions are thoroughly documented, but at the same time the technical discussions occasionally lead to rather heavy going for the non-specialist reader.
Detailed but inconclusive.......2004-12-14
This is a rapidly evolving subject and things have moved on since the book was written.
The author has researched very intensively and the book is heavy on facts, arguments and counter arguments. There is however, little to take home with you.
I've read extreme versions of the tale including the work by Danish ornithologist Heilmann (birds are proto dinosaurs) and accounts by Robert Bakker (birds are derived dinosaurs). I tend to prefer the dinosaurs are birds argument which is gaining more momentum with every new fossil unearthed, but this book tries hard to be impartial and creates too much doubt. The author does not say what she thinks and why which would have been useful.
It is balanced and a good addition summarising our knowledge but there are probably far better works now available.
Details but a lack of structure.......2003-04-02
This book is rich in detail and a great study of the tactics taken by paleontolgists in proposing theories and testing those proposals by working with fossils and similar living creatures that may cast light on the theory. But inevitably, it seems, for every proposal and positive test result someone else will come up with another test for the same proposal and the results will be negative. In the end there are so many questions without firm answers that it becomes hard to know which, if any, or which combinations of these questions, would resolve the matter. It seems that Archaeopteryx had feathers (although there is discussion of those who thought the feather impressions were forgeries). It seems that it was a dinosaur (not a bird). But was it 'proaves' the precursor bird? Apparently the fossil record of primitive birds is too poor for us to know - I would have liked more details about these early fossil birds. Was Archaeopteryx warm blooded? Were any dinosaurs? Could Archaeopteryx fly or were the feathers merely for heat insulation? For me I would have liked more on 'pro-feather' - the precursor to feathers. At the very end of the book we learn of a find in 1996 in China of a dinosaur that did not have wings but appears to have feathers on its back and sides. Other flying creatures are discussed - pterosaurs, insects, bats (surprisingly from the fossil record quite recently evolved) and gliding mammals such a sugar gliders. There is also some aerodynamics in this book as researchers try to determine if Archaeopteryx could fly. The result of their aerodynamic studies? As always - uncertainty!
I am reviewing a paperback copy of this book published by Wiedenfeld and Nicolson. It's a handsome book but I cannot understand what possessed the publishers to put a pterosaur fossil on the front cover rather than Archaeopteryx. To be fair, they do point this out on the back cover which is how I finalised realised this - but who pays much attention to back cover blurbs?
out-of-print?.......2002-08-06
This beautifully written and engaging book is still available in hardback at a surprisingly low price from Daedalus.com (at least when I last checked August 1, 2002).
Highly recommended for both its written style and content.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Wilson Bulletin, published by Wilson Ornithological Society on December 1, 2000. The length of the article is 882 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: TAKING WING: ARCHAEOPTERYX AND THE EVOLUTION OF BIRD FLIGHT.(Review) (book review)
Author: Robert M. Schoch
Publication:
Wilson Bulletin (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2000
Publisher: Wilson Ornithological Society
Volume: 112
Issue: 4
Page: 573
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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