Summary

As a child Nabokov’s family likes Anglo-Saxon culture. Nabokov recalls learning to read in English before Russian and that this learning to read the stories in the beginning reader books was the beginning of his love affair with story. He recalls summer evenings in the nursery with his mother, playing with blocks while she read to him in English. Though he loved the language and his mother reading to him, he liked very few of his English governesses and the language lessons taught. It was at the end of his language lessons, when he would get to the back of the primers and the practice sentences would finally form a story, that he enjoyed it.

Analysis

Chapter four recounts Nabokov’s early memories of reading at the country house, of his wealthy family enjoying English goods and delicacies. In this chapter, Nabokov confirms...