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Foreword and Chapter 1

• "Speak, Memory" is an autobiographical novel culled from essays on Nabokov's life.

• Nabokov opens his autobiography with a short meditation on the periods of inexistence before birth and after death and says autobiography is a battle against this darkness.

• His first memories are significant because of what he learns about himself or they lead to other important memories.

• A memory of a bracelet leads to a memory of his father, which leads to a memory of General Kuropatkin.

• Nabokov's father is a prominent aristocrat, a member of the Constitutionalist Democratic Party, which won a majority of seats in the first parliamentary elections in 1906; when Nabokov is young, the townsfolk would ask his father to mediate arguments or provide financial support for civic needs, which would often take him away from the dinner table.

Chapter 2

• Nabokov reveals that his mind always associates sounds with colors, and...

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