Book Review: "Think, Write, Speak" by Vladimir Nabokov

It is finally official, I have completed reading all of the published works of the great Russian-American writer and poet, Vladimir Nabokov. My favourite book by him being “Invitation to a Beheading” - the social stigma around police corruption and political sway has been explored in depth in every novel but in that one, it has to be the very best he has ever written. The morality critique of “Lolita” is one that has haunted readers ever since it was first published and then subsequently banned in several countries. It has since created a questionable sub-culture of the gothic entitled “Lolita Culture” embraced from Japan to Lana Del Rey. It, in my opinion, has misunderstood the original content entirely. His poetry has constantly been under scrutiny by scholars with some calling it some of his weakest work. In my opinion, it is not but I do think he holds some animosity towards the writer of “Dr. Zhivago” - Boris Pasternak because of his succession with poetry, Nabokov noted his prose as sub-par. With his books “Pale Fire”, “Ada or Ardor” and even “King, Queen, Knave” Nabokov shows his more intense side, whereas, in “Pnin” (another one of my personal favourites by him) he shows a side that is allowed to have a laugh and even seeks to make fun of his own personal achievements in literature.

In this book, “Think, Write, Speak”, Nabokov writes in many different styles. This compilation of collected works include everything from letters to the editor all the way down to lectures, book reviews, critical essays and publications in magazines. There are a number of them that are funny but most of them look critically at his own works or the works of Russian Literature in the last one hundred or so years. When it comes to other people’s works though, Nabokov in his usual nature can be a little bit harsh.

One of my favourite works within this book was the essay where he talks about the new “Lolita Culture” in America as being far removed from his own work and explains it more as “Bardot” Culture (referring to Bridget Bardot). He states how much people have misunderstood his novel and seeks to explain the morality argument in which we cannot defend the harm that comes to children under the emotions of adults. Another one, on the other hand, is also my favourite - in which he simply appreciates the butterflies of Jerusalem. The piece says that Nabokov would simply go to Jerusalem to give a lecture because of being around the butterflies in the country and to be perfectly honest, he is not alone in wanting to see butterflies in Israel.

Another essay, he talks about the literature os Russia and one of the things he mentions is the way in which the Bolsheviks Revolution did not really represent freedom for everyone in Russia. It really depended who you were talking about when you said freedom for the Russians. There were, according to Nabokov - the serfs and the aristocrats. And of course, this is possibly the most important thing to think of when it comes to communist Russia as these two separate parties ironically should not exist.

We can definitely see that Nabokov is heavily educated in the matters of Russia’s political background throughout the 20th century and with his extended metaphors throughout, he can be seen at every angle criticising the flaws with his dear beautiful country. Yet, he always shows an appreciation for it simply existing with the fact that he had his son translate his works into English after writing exclusively in Russian despite being fluent in English.