Nabokov\'s Colorful Life Story Takes

Nabokov's colorful life story takes place against the tumultuous backdrop of the Russian Revolution. Although the autobiography has a personal dimension and is written in familiar, casual language, politics infuse Nabokov's life story. Even before he was old enough to realize it, Nabokov's childhood was shaped by the political and social dimensions of his family and community life. This is why it is important for Nabokov to weave in anecdotes and commentary on his father's politics, and his own position during the Russian Revolution. Reading Speak, Memory makes me contemplate the role of culture, history, background, and politics in my own life story.

As he reflects on his father, the reality of how politics affects one's personal life becomes clear. It is impossible to separate Nabokov's private life from his social milieu, too, as issues like socio-economic class define his family's existence. Reading Nabokov's story allows one to gain insight into a specific stratum of Russian society, albeit a strong and formative one. Nabokov leads a global life. He grows up in a worldly family, which exposes him to the gamut of European intellectual knowledge. Nabokov is trilingual, and highly literate. In his time, there were few people like him. There are more now, showing how fast the world has changed in the past century. I was raised in a similarly worldly environment, just not a Russian one. My siblings and I -- we are triplets -- are multilingual and multicultural. We were born in one of the most vibrant multicultural cities in the world, Tel Aviv, and we were raised and still live in another of the world's most exciting cosmopolitan cities, Istanbul. Like Saint Petersburg, Istanbul is stratified in a complex way. This stratification is something that impacted my siblings and I more than we realized it when we were growing up, but upon self-reflection, the memories of our childhood start to speak loud and clear.

Nabokov's childhood was shaped only indirectly by his siblings. This is one of the main points of divergence between the Russian author and me. Although his brother features prominently in the narrative, Nabokov cannot know, as most people cannot know, what it is like to be one of a set of triplets. The mental energy and power that comes from being one of a set is in part related to the practical issues related to our upbringing, such as the need to formulate a unique identity in spite of being treated and viewed as equals. We competed for our parents' attention, unlike typical siblings whose birth order defines much of who they are in the family.

When Nabokov's family is in exile, and they live as immigrants, the comparisons between his story and my own become even more salient. The comparison raises the question: to what degree does our environment shape our identity? Is it possible to separate the self from one's culture, class, and creed?