A Late Post on Photo Captions in "Speak, Memory"

I apologize for the lateness of this post! It was something I had planned to put up all weekend and just kept feeling disgustingly sick. It is the idea that I presented in class today (Tuesday, 10/14), regarding the family photograph on page 140 of Speak, Memory.

Here are the parts of the caption that I found most intriguing:

• "The round thing on the tree trunk is an archery target..."
• "...photophobic Trainy..."
• "My paternal grandmother is holding, in a decorative but precarious cluster, my two little sisters whom she never held in real life..."
• "I am perched on the bench arm, hating my collar and Stresa."

Nabokov's allusion to the target on the trunk is so "him." It's just part of his style, and I find it slightly ingenius. Nabokov clearly has a vivid "Memory" that seems to see everything. Each memory that Nabokov writes about is so visually stimulating. I feel like it's just in his nature to notice everything about his surroundings, even is photographic self.

Photophobic Trainy just amuses me, because he looks so photophobic in the picture. It was the perfect way to describe the poor dog's emotional status in the picture. He looks absolutely petrified to be there. My dog is also particularly photophobic, so I have seen Trainy's posture before in my own life (expect in a MUCH larger canine).

Nabokov's grandmother never holds his sisters in real life. This indicates that pictures can be incredibly deceiving. Writing can be honest, and Nabokov is being honest about his grandmother who was apparently not a nurturing grandmother in the least. His words are the truth, even though the photograph could say something completely different about the personality of his grandmother.

Nabokov's final thought in the caption is sort of funny, because his photographed self does look extremely annoyed to be in the picture. He looks like he is about to spring off the bench's arm the first chance he gets. I just think Nabokov has done something that humans tend to do, and that is consider their physical and mental states of being when photographs were taken. I have numerous photographs in my house that bring back sensory memories. He remembers the discomfort he felt when wearing the collar and Stresa. I remember a photograph of me at my 8th grade birthday party blowing out the candles on the cake, and that photograph always makes me remember the spell of the burning candles mixed with the delicious smells of the frosting and dough of the cake.