Finding the Beauty in the “butcher’s carcasses”: Vladimir Nabokov’s Sense of Memory

Human beings have always fought against solitude, pain, the loss of roots. In a globalized and complex world, this theme is still crucial: more than ever, humans are now searching for their place, trying to fill the emptiness, the void in their days. In light of the above, this paper aims to explore Vladimir Nabokov’s works in connection with the figure of exile, not just literary, but also in relation with life and the sense of the past: the exiled as an archetype for the modern man, who wishes to rediscover the beauty in an unrecognizable and transfigured world. In particular, the paper focuses on some of Nabokov’s novels, such as The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, his autobiography Speak, Memory, and his attempt to explore the world in all its variants and complexity, life and death. Tracing an affectionate and synesthetic image of his beloved land, his language, his culture, we will see how Nabokov considers literature as a space, an elitist refuge, where the individual can hide and protect himself from the outside world and as a way to affirm his identity.