Frank, Siggy. Reassembled Fragments: Nabokov’s Speak, Memory as Compilation and Collection. 2026

This article explores how Nabokov articulates a specific concept of memory

as a curated collection of textual and material fragments in the final version of his autobi-

ography. Rather than presenting a linear narrative, Nabokov foregrounds the curatorial

nature of recollection, positing remembering and compiling as analogous processes

that are predicated on retrieval, selection, and arrangement. In the final version of the

autobiography, the metaphor of compilation operates beyond a thematic level, shaping

the very form of the autobiographical text. Through added intertextual citation, Speak,

Memory draws attention to itself as a multi-voiced compilation of intergenerational

memory, which draws on and recontextualizes external sources. The integration of the

added paratextual elements—photographs, map, index—extends the metaphor of com-

pilation further into the book as a material object. The article argues that these editorial

gestures complicate notions of a single authorship of memory and of the past. In this con-

text, the metaphor of compilation assumes a critical function, repositioning the author as

compiler—one who continuously reorders fragments of the past, striving for but never

attaining a stable, permanent structure.