Sometimes a fact unknown to the reader decides the choice. The presence or absence of certain passages in the Russian, French (the chapter 'Mademoiselle O'), and English versions are determined by the reading audiences and their familiarity with the subject. The first chapter traces the evolution of Nabokov's autobiography, including the unfinished project 'Speak On, America,' and illustrates how the changes are reflected in its poetics.

Malikova suggests a different approach: the reader must oppose 'the author's tyranny,' conflate the fictional and factual reading codes, and, finally, consider the parodic nature of 'autobiographic intertextuality.'

Its dominant feature is that Nabokov explicitly directs and imposes on the reader his method of reading, which can be misleading because it forces the reader to imitate the writer. Drugie berega/Speak, Memory, mainly due to the popularity of the memoir genre, is often read as the most 'simple' and 'humane' of all Nabokov's works, but, in fact, the book is far more complicated than it appears. Malikova begins with a paradox: Speak, Memory, although 'the ideal introduction' to the whole of Nabokov's oeuvre, is, in a sense marginal to that oeuvre. Structural and stylistic elements of Nabokov's autobiography and the nature of its poetics are also probed, as well as those psychological and psycho-physiological features of Nabokov's memory that significantly influence and form his autobiographical style. She also examines the Russian autobiographical tradition, both 'classical' and 'modernist,' and explores problems of intertextuality.

Malikova, whose approach is primarily theoretical, opens with a definition of the autobiographical genre and addresses the issues inherent in reading Nabokov's work. It appeared only in commemoration of the author's centenary in 1999. The volume concludes with the sixteenth and final chapter of Conclusive Evidence (in Sergey Ilyin's translation), which Nabokov omitted from all of the published versions. Malikova also examines the fictional biographies in Nabokov's Russian novels. It is the first to cover the entire corpus of Nabokov's autobiographies (not just the Russian Drugie berega or the English Speak, Memory) and to treat them as integral parts of a single, integrated organism. ness n Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law.Maria Malikova's monograph is the first extended Russian study of Nabokov's three memoirs: Conclusive Evidence, Speak, Memory, and Drugie berega ( Other Shores).sive adj 1: of, relating to, or being a conclusion 2: putting an end to debate or question esp.That which makes evident or manifest that which furnishes, or tends to furnish, proof any mode of proof the ground of belief or judgement as, the evidence of our senses … … The Collaborative International Dictionary of EnglishĬonclusive - con Conclusive evidence - Evidence Ev i*dence, n.

Nabokov conclusive evidence