Chapter Fifteen, "Gardens and Parks," concludes Speak, Memory, when Nabokov addresses his wife, Vera, and touchingly talks to her about their son, Dmitri and all their shared memories.
But that short summary of the book's contents is devoid of the detail and style that makes Speak, Memory a wonderful book. The prose is some of Nabokov's best. His descriptions his experiences sparkle with a exactness that would be hard to believe if it were anyone but Nabokov. For example, Chapter Three of Speak, Memory begins with:
The kind of Russian family to which I belonged--a kind now extinct--had, among other virtues, a traditional leaning toward the comfortable produces of Anglo-Saxon civilization. Pears' Soap, tar-black when dry, topaz-like when held to the light between wet fingers, took care of one's morning bath. Pleasant was the decreasing weight of the English collapsible tub when it was made to protrude a rubber underlip and disgorge its frothy contents to the slop pail.
'We could not improve the cream, so we improved the tube,' said the English toothpaste. At breakfast, Golden Syrup imported from London would entwist with its glowing coils the revolving spoon from which enough of it had slithered onto a piece of Russian bread and butter. All sorts of snug, mellow things came in a steady procession from the English Shop on Nevski Avenue: fruitcakes, smelling salts, playing cards, picture puzzles, striped blazers, talcum-white tennis balls.4
This level of detail not only lets the reader vicariously experience Nabokov's childhood, but also informs his work. He was a man of observation, collecting experiences to give real life to fiction. Like the novels he read, taught and wrote, his life and its book are worlds that require exploration. Speak, Memory is not a quick read, being dense with details that must be slowly absorbed and enjoyed, but it is well worth the effort.
(Otherwise, there is such a thing as invisible ink. A person has to wish to see what's in there in order to read that stuff.)
