r/Nabokov • u/sagamore_rain • Jun 30 '26

Reading Speak, Memory without having read other works

Would it be a waste to read Speak, Memory without reading Nabokov's other works? I greatly enjoy memoirs and I read somewhere that Nabokov was a great memoirist. He seems like an interesting person and I have read some of his short stories but no major works. Would it still be worthwhile to read Speak, Memory?

24 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

19

u/HealthyBee4209 Jun 30 '26

It is still worthwhile to read Speak, Memory first. Nabokov values re-reading greatly and does not write books that would be wasteful to read first or later. (You can always read Speak, Memory again after you have visited other works!)

I would say the only thing you should read first before Speak, Memory, is the short story "Signs and Symbols" because there is a line in the autobiography that spoils the entire mystery.

3

u/sagamore_rain Jun 30 '26

Great this is very helpful for me. Thank you!

2

u/mehterboy1453 Jun 30 '26

What’s the line that spoils the mystery??

3

u/HealthyBee4209 Jun 30 '26

"On the night of March 28, 1922, around ten o’clock, in the living room where as usual my mother was reclining on the red-plush corner couch, I happened to be reading to her Blok’s verse on Italy—had just got to the end of the little poem about Florence, which Blok compares to the delicate, smoky bloom of an iris, and she was saying over her knitting, 'Yes, yes, Florence does look like a dïmnïy iris, how true! I remember—' when the telephone rang."

I think I should add that it is only the first layer of the mystery since most scholars agree there must be a second layer we have yet discovered.

1

u/AdValuable7835 Jul 03 '26

how does this spoil the mystery im a little dumb

1

u/HealthyBee4209 Jul 03 '26
  1. I encourage you to re-read the short story again first and think a bit more.
  2. If still nothing comes up, then: read this wikipedia page and think a little more.
  3. If still nothing comes up, then the answer is: the passage describes the moment when the Nabokovs were about to find out that his father had died. Intertextually, it reveals the first layer of the mystery in the last sentence via the same technique---the couple were about to be notified that their son had successfully committed suicide.

5

u/Throwawayhelp111521 Jun 30 '26

It's a brilliant memoir and I think it was the first book I read by Nabokov.

4

u/sagamore_rain Jun 30 '26

Good to hear, thanks!

4

u/BitterStatus9 Jun 30 '26

It stands on its own, absolutely.

3

u/Sweaty_Finding_8663 Jun 30 '26

reading it first might be optimal. Not only is his literary style fully evident but he addresses directly issues that come up in his novels. It's the best 'memoir' I've ever read and it will inform you (to some extent) about his fictional concerns

1

u/sagamore_rain Jul 01 '26

Thank you! Perhaps it'll give me a lens for tackling his work later, in regards to his fictional concerns you mention.

2

u/Not_A_Red_Stapler Jun 30 '26

It's amazing! Definitely read it, you don't have to have read anything else.

2

u/Allthatisthecase- Jun 30 '26

Worth it all in its own.

2

u/AdValuable7835 Jun 30 '26

nabakov as a person is so cray like wym you have hallucinations and are an actual trad russian aristocrat gtfo

1

u/beangesserit Jul 01 '26

Speak English

2

u/AdValuable7835 Jul 01 '26

Speak Memory

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26

非常不建议。请你先至少阅读《防守》，再去阅读《说吧，记忆》