Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited Short Question Test Answer Key

Short Answer Key

Foreword and Chapter 1

1. What is the process by which Vladimir Nabokov writes "Speak, Memory?"

The autobiographical novel is culled from essays on his life.

2. This chapter is the first recorded work, published in French in 1936, under the name "Mademoiselle O."

Chapter Five.

3. The rest of the chapters are published separately, mainly by whom?

The New Yorker.

4. What does Nabokov call the process of using both the English and Russian translations of "Speak, Memory" to shape the current work?

Re-Englishing.

5. How does Nabokov open his autobiography?

With a short meditation on the periods of inexistence before birth and after death.

6. To what does Nabokov compare existence?

A cradle rocking on the edge of an abyss.

7. What is a battle against the yawning darkness?

Autobiography.

8. What is the first memory Nabokov drags from the darkness?

Holding hands with his mother...
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