Speak Memory
An Autobiography Revisited
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Narrated by:
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Stefan Rudnicki
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By:
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Vladimir Nabokov
About this listen
From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. 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 Luhzin Defense.
One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.
©1947, 1951, 1967 Vladimir Nabokov (P)2010 Audible, IncListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
This audiobook pairs two classic voices - the distinctive turns of phrase of seminal Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov and the equally recognizable baritone of prolific narrator Stefan Rudnicki. Speak Memory, a book of autobiographical essays first collected in 1951, has been hailed as one of the best works of nonfiction in the 20th century. The tight connection between masterful prose and richly contemplative voice work assures that nothing in this fascinating self-treatment is lost upon the listener.
Nabokov spends little time discussing his writing, but his creative processes are spectacularly evident as he examines his own life from the history of his parents up through his immigration to the United States in 1940. Rudnicki captures all the little excitements of boyhood, from building forts to the first summertime crush, and hobbies of chess and butterflies that would become Nabokov's lifelong obsessions. On the run first from the czar and then from revolutionary Russian politics, Nabokov led a very international young life that parallels Rudnicki's own travels, making the accents particularly on point. Rudnicki's Polish heritage affords him the slightly drawn out Slavic vowels, and he displays an impressive command of the author's several languages - English, Russian, French, and even a bit of German.
What emerges is a nuanced portrait of an exceptional and unique figure in literary history whose powers of delicate perception are thankfully matched by Rudnicki's precise and vibrant interpretation. Rendered in a charismatic style deeply befitting a man as charming as Nabokov, there is a lot to love in this audiobook. Even those who have already long treasured the text will find this a worthwhile listen. One cannot say that it sounds like Nabokov doing the reading, but if the author had a choice in the matter, surely Stefan Rudnicki delivers the resonant voice that Nabokov would have chosen for his audio avatar. (Megan Volpert)
Critic reviews
"Beguiling and superbly produced, this bittersweet rendition will appeal to lovers of Nabokov and those experiencing their first taste." (AudioFile)
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It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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All the Lives We Never Lived
- By: Anuradha Roy
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Man Booker Prize-nominated author of Sleeping on Jupiter, The Folded Earth, and An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother....
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Beautiful book
- By Sonia S. on 12-13-19
By: Anuradha Roy
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The Blind Assassin
- By: Margaret Atwood
- Narrated by: Margot Dionne
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.
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Good book, TERRIBLE audio!
- By Whitney on 04-27-09
By: Margaret Atwood
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Palace of Tears
- By: Julian Leatherdale
- Narrated by: Ming-Zhu Hii
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The dazzling story of family, passion, secrets and vengeance, woven through the hardships of both World Wars and revealing the intriguing history of the Palace, the opulent Blue Mountains hotel famed for its luxury and mysterious owner. A sweltering summer's day, January 1914: the charismatic and ruthless Adam Fox throws a lavish birthday party for his son and heir at his elegant clifftop hotel in the Blue Mountains. Everyone is invited except Angie, the girl from the cottage next door.
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Distractingly bad acting by narrator!
- By Bunny on 01-30-16
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Picnic at Hanging Rock
- By: Joan Lindsay
- Narrated by: Jacqueline McKenzie
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
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St Valentine’s Day, in the midst of the hot summer of 1900, a party of schoolgirls went on a picnic to Hanging Rock. Some were never to return…. An Australian classic, the disappearance of three girls and a schoolteacher at Hanging Rock has captivated and intrigued audiences for generations. Jacqueline McKenzie’s interpretation of the best-selling novel captures all of the beauty of the Rock and illustrates the eerie sense of the unknown for which the story is legendary.
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NOT UNabridged!
- By Doreen on 05-09-15
By: Joan Lindsay
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Now, Voyager
- Femmes Fatales
- By: Olive Higgins Prouty
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself.
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The Inspiration for The Movie Classic
- By Susie on 12-17-12
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Ghosts: Edith Wharton's Gothic Tales
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin, Jonathan Epstein, Corinna May, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Beneath the brilliance that was behind The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome was a dark side. A dark side which produced magnificent tales of the unseen influences in our lives, such as "Mr. Jones", "The Eyes", "Kerfol", "The Ladie's Maid's Bell", and "The Looking Glass".
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Ghastly Shadows of the Feminine Condition
- By Diane on 10-16-12
By: Edith Wharton
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The Stolen Child
- By: Keith Donohue
- Narrated by: Andy Paris, Jeff Woodman
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven-year-old Henry Day is kidnapped and renamed "Aniday" by changelings, ageless beings who inhabit the woods near his home. The changelings also leave behind one of their own, who flawlessly impersonates Henry except for one noteworthy detail: the new Henry is a prodigiously talented pianist.
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Not Anything Close to the Hype
- By Jon on 06-20-06
By: Keith Donohue
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The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
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Masterful
- By Amazon customer on 11-25-15
By: John Banville
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Good Poems
- Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor
- By: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and others
- Narrated by: Garrison Keillor
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
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Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence.
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Very good, but. . .
- By KSmith on 01-27-11
By: Emily Dickinson, and others
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Doctor Zhivago
- By: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara.
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Russian Philosophical Feast
- By Syd Young on 02-16-13
By: Boris Pasternak, and others
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Ethan Frome
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer, is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife, Zeena.When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help care for her, Ethan is immediately taken by Mattie's warm, vivacious personality. They fall desperately in love as he realizes how much is missing from his life and marriage.
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Slow is smooth and smooth is Fast until it isn't
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: Edith Wharton
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Death is often the point of life's joke
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Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition.
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Ada, or Ardor
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Published two weeks after Vladimir Nabokov’s seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of his greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest, but it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue. Ada, or Ardor is no less than the supreme work of an imagination at white heat. This is the first American edition to include the extensive and ingeniously sardonic appendix by the author, written under the anagrammatic pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom.
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A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed - according to Nabokov's fiction - by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
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An amazing feat for such a unique novel
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From Vladimir Nabokov, the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and the 1950s, these 68 tales — 14 of which have been translated into English for the first time - display all the shades of Nabokov’s imagination.
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A Kaleidoscope of Nabokov Bábochkas
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Bend Sinister
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The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America, and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man.
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A fantastic fairytale of fascism
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By: Vladimir Nabokov
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The Gift
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The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write - a book very much like The Gift itself.
One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899.
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A complex and rich Künstlerroman
- By Darwin8u on 11-30-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays
- By: Michel de Montaigne
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- Unabridged
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In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death.
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The Enchanter
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- Unabridged
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The Enchanter is the Ur-Lolita, the precursor to Nabokov’s classic novel. At once hilarious and chilling, it tells the story of an outwardly respectable man and his fatal obsession with certain pubescent girls, whose coltish grace and subconscious coquetry reveal, to his mind, a special bud on the verge of bloom.
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Nabokov's black salad devouring a green rabbit
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By: Vladimir Nabokov
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The Eye
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Nabokov’s fourth novel, The Eye, is as much a farcical detective story as it is a profoundly refractive tale about the vicissitudes of identities and appearances. Smurov, a lovelorn, excruciatingly self-conscious Russian émigré living in pre-war Berlin, commits suicide after being humiliated by a jealous husband, only to suffer even greater indignities in the afterlife as he searches for proof of his existence among fellow émigrés who are too distracted to pay him any heed.
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Ego vero, ergo sum
- By Darwin8u on 12-18-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Cherry
- By: Mary Karr
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- Abridged
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From Mary Karr comes the gorgeously written, often hilarious story of her tumultuous teens and sexual coming-of-age.
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Mary Karr's voice makes the story come alive
- By Michael on 11-19-03
By: Mary Karr
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Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
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- Unabridged
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Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
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An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Operation Shylock
- A Confession
- By: Philip Roth
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In this book (which may or may not be fiction), Philip Roth meets a man who may or may not be Philip Roth. Because someone with that name has been touring Israel, promoting a bizarre reverse exodus of the Jews. Roth is intent on stopping him, even if that means impersonating his own impersonator. With excruciating suspense, unfettered philosophical speculation, and a wild cast of characters, Operation Shylock barrels across the frontier between fact and fiction, seriousness and high comedy, history and nightmare.
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You'd get shamed out of town for proposing that ending in any writing workshop in America.
- By Cursh on 11-26-24
By: Philip Roth
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The Luzhin Defense
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Nabokov’s third novel, The Luzhin Defense, is a chilling story of obsession and madness. As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen — an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life. His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster — but at a cost: in Luzhin’s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants reality.
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Life and chess are such lonely battles
- By Darwin8u on 11-13-12
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the first novel Nabokov wrote in English, is a tantalizing literary mystery in which a writer’s half brother searches to unravel the enigma of the life of the famous author of Albinos in Black, The Back of the Moon, and Doubtful Asphodel. A characteristically cunning play on identity and deception, the novel concludes “ I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.”
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A dry run at big, complex themes
- By Darwin8u on 12-08-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
What listeners say about Speak Memory
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- The Flash Fiction Ponder
- 02-12-18
Celestial Beauty of Literature
Being on my quest to listen to all of Nabokov's books, this marks my third thus far. Yeah, I cheated a little by skipping ahead, still unsure as to when his genius for literature actually came to fruition. Wasn't with 'Mary', but somewhere between that one and Lolita. I'll undertake his second work soon, but not knowing when I'd again return to the magic I went ahead and listened to this one. Although not terribly great when it comes to actual story, the writing itself, so exquisite! No one else uses words in such ways! Onwards my Nabokov journey sails...
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- Michael Greenstein
- 09-21-14
Very interesting and provocative
Nabakov is a master with words and he can weave a scene with exquisite detail. But then you could say this about all of his work. It was interesting to learn of his early life and which events he chose to reveal (and by omission, those he chose not to tell). Certainly worthwhile if you are familiar with his work and want to know more about the man.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Philip G.
- 10-13-20
As dreadful as War And Peace w/o plot and events
I gave this book three stars because Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution is of some interest to me. Otherwise, the book has not much of a content. Endless details and allegories describe things that are mostly static, or exist only in the author's head. BORING.
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- Tim
- 01-11-15
Fascinating book; Overly dry narration
Is there anything you would change about this book?
I would hire a different performer, such as Jeremy Irons, who did such a fantastic job reading Nabokov's novel Lolita.
What did you like best about this story?
Nabokov's autobiographical comments are genuinely fascinating and insightful. I really like the text of this book.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
The narrator is too try and emotionless. Rudnicki sounds a lot like Mr. Spock. I don't mean that he sounds like Leonard Nemoy, I mean that he sounds like Mr. Spock.
Nabokov's book contains many comments that are ironic, tongue-in-cheek, sly, mischievous, self-doubting, wistful, or just plain funny. Rudnicki reads though all of them with an even tone of voice, as if he were reading an instruction manual. I have trouble staying focused on Nabokov's narrative while listening to this audiobook. Every word that Rudnicki utters subconsciously communicates to me "here comes the boring part!"
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3 people found this helpful
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- Tarquin
- 01-18-19
A spiral rainbow in a florescent crystal.
Here's Nabokov once again at his scintillating best. I read the print edition many and many a moon ago and I tried the audio book with mixed feelings. The reader is generally good, but somehow he fails to inject the voice magic richly deserved by this literary masterpiece put together with flashes of memory polished by Nabokov's pearly prose and scholarship.
As the author writes in his preface to "The Gift", ..."gone is Bunin, Aldanov and Remizov. Gone is Alexandre Khodasevitch, the greatest Russian poet the 20th century has yet produced. ".... their wanderings seem like those of some mythical tribe, whose moon signs and bird signs I now retrieve from the desert dust." Indeed, in this book, he has done it to himself and more, sprinkled it with the gleam of sunshine on raindrops gliding down the leaves after a summer cloud burst, flash of a butterfly wing vaguely seen disappearing around the blooming Lilacs, in short, bits of childhood, youth and manhood seem through the kaleidoscope of our yearning to remake our past. What I find wonderous is the author knows it and instead of trying to 'rationalise his past using the tools of mental mechanics of every ilk and turning the tale into an abysmal argosy of cloying coyness, he moulds it into a literary treasure trove of great beauty one never tires of going back to gloat over one's own favourite passage.
My only regret is Nabokov did not make this book at least twice as long as it is, but this is a complaint I have often made against him and a few of my favourite writers. Fortunately for me, their number is small, otherwise, I might have turned out to dislike literary enjoyment altogether.
This may be what some minor wise man meant by saying that one should be greatful for small mercies.
I cannot recommend "Speak Memory" highly enough.
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- Darwin8u
- 08-09-12
Speak, Mnemosyne!
Probably one of my favorite autobiographies to date (beaten only perhaps by the Education of Henry Adams). Realistically, it is 4.56 stars given the narrative gaps (most were written as individual pieces for Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker and Harpers). The section on butterflies (Chapter 6), his Russian education (Chapter 9), and his portrait of his mother (Chapter 2) were absolutely AMAZING. Other chapters were just as good, and only a couple were less than what I hoped. It is interesting to think of Nabokov writing these in English in Massachusetts from his Russian memories and then translating them in the 1950s back into Russian and then using the Russian version to edit a new edition in 1966. The human mind, with all its varieties, is an phenomenal thing...but Nabokov's mind and the prose it produces makes me want to just lay down and lick the back of my own head in jealousy.
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34 people found this helpful
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- Isla
- 03-13-12
Marvelous!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. I love Nabokov, so I may be a bit biased, but this book illuminates so much more than just a man and his life, and more than just his life's work. It is filled with insight into many aspects of life. It's also a very interesting history told through a wise and eloquent lens.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Well, Nabokov I suppose. Also Vera.
Which character – as performed by Stefan Rudnicki – was your favorite?
Stefan's voice seems perfect for every aspect of this book. I very much enjoyed it.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Chapter 11 section 2. A simple but beautiful notion about life, art, and the artist.
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- Karl Kronlage
- 06-05-23
Not my favorite memoir
It does get better after listing his ancestry in chapter three. He is a poet and relies on giving the impression of the moment. For instance, he will mention a dead horsefly, which adds nothing. At times, his description are verbose and while he gives a distinct impression, it lacks the importance of Night (the Holocaust) or Black Boy. It’s not bad, but wouldn’t make my top ten best memoirs. The reader, though, is good
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- Sequoyah
- 11-10-20
Perfect Narrator
Many people complain about Stefan as a narrator in reviews for this book, but the sonorous melody of his voice only improves Nabokov’s stylistic prose. He applies perfect intonations with Nabokov’s jokes and provides correct emphasis where emphasis is required. The book itself a solid, I think I prefer Nabokov’s erudite style in nonfiction form rather than fiction. It suits him immensely.
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- B. Pocker
- 09-22-24
Brilliant story of the early life of a genius
No one who listens to the language of Nabokov can forget him. It is dense, rich, funny, and always surprising. His early life story is instructive in the unexpected and rarely told descriptions of pre Bolshevik Russia. It is a testament to what was destroyed by the communists and it is a warning for today. Highly recommend.
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