Spatialized time, synchrony and the art of memory in Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory

Abstract

The works of Vladimir Nabokov address the notions of time and space in relation to the art of writing, tracing the multifaceted dimensions of the temporal pattern in which art operates and its visual translations. For Nabokov, the synchronic design and appreciation of the novel is preferred to the traditional diachronic approach. Hence, the literary work is regarded as a primarily spatial structure that should be perceived with a photographic eye. This paper will investigate concepts such as manifold awareness, transparency, spatial and temporal folding, the presence of ekphrasis, and the role of memory in achieving synchrony. I will explore how in Speak, Memory, the desire to simultaneously grasp the disparate elements of life in an undistorted state is expressed through imagery that collapses the past and the present into a singular intense sensation by means of “cosmic synchronization”.