We first meet Vladimir in his natural habitat: sitting in his family's country estate watching old family movies, most of which were filmed before he was born. This is the way in which he comes to understand the passing of time; seeing his parents on film as individual people who existed quite successfully without him before his birth is a jarring experience for him, but it is also a powerful lesson. He also starts to notice the world around him and to understand that he is a small cog in a huge wheel when it comes to his place in the world. Nabokov tells us that even as a small child he was prone to having hallucinations. He also has synesthesia, which is the experience of certain letters of the alphabet being allocated a particular color in his brain. This condition is hereditary and is just another thing that brings the young man and his mother together. He talks of her with love, and it is clear that the two were extremely close.
As he grows up, Nabokov is looked after by a succession of nursemaids, governesses and nannies, some he likes, some he does not care for. He is a Russian child but takes easily to learning languages, and when he learns English begins to read English books voraciously. He later learns French from a private teacher whom he at first doesn't like, but comes to appreciate enormously, using her as the basis for multiple characters in his novels.
Nabokov begins to show signs of obsessive compulsive disorder at the age of seven. His first obsession is butterflies, which he hunts in the woods and catches, then keeps in a collection after his mother has killed them and preserved them. He becomes more and more obsessional and is rarely seen without his butterfly net.
Vladimir turns ten years old in 1909, and heads to Biarritz with his family. Biarritz, in the South of France, is a playground for well-to-do families, and it is here that he meets the writer Colette, whom he develops a crush on, deciding that the only reasonable course of action to take is to elope with her. Because they are ten years old, the romantic notion does not take shape, and although the pair daringly hold hands during a movie, this is as far as their romance progresses. Both return home when their vacations are over and never see each other again. However, Vladimir does take something of the vacation home with him; he has become fascinated with the contrast of being inside the darkness of the movie theater and then leaving to see bright, vivid sunlight. This leads him to another obsession, magic lanterns that show a series of photographic slides that capture moments in time. This obsession never truly leaves him and throughout his life he sees temporary associations with people that one never sees again as scenes from a magic lantern.
One of the most important relationships in Nabokov's life is his friendship with his cousin Yuri. Yuri's family are not as well-off as Vladimir's and he is a little rough around the edges, but the two have many boyhood adventures together that are usually inspired by the things that bookworm Vladimir has been reading about.
He begins to develop a talent for writing poetry at the age of fifteen. His first effort is an elegy to nature, filled with unwieldy traditional Russian language devices. He shows this effort to his mother but she is preoccupied; his father is trapped in St. Petersburg, worrying, since political unrest is increasing and beginning to bubble up from under the surface. When World War One breaks out, Nabokov feels distanced from it, largely because he is in love again. The girl in question is called Tamara, and the two skip school together to pursue their romance. Unfortunately, Nabokov writes a volume of poetry filled with details about their relationship, and they start to drift apart; Tamara is not happy that he has shared these private details and feels betrayed. As the War becomes more of a threat to the Russians at home, the Nabokov's move to Yalta and Tamara's family relocate to the Ukraine. Despite writing letters to each other the pair leave touch when Tamara's family are forced to flee Ukraine.
The Nabokovs also move on, leaving Yalta for Greece, then subsequently for England. This move is not a success; England is very expensive and extremely depressing. Vladimir and his brothers go to Cambridge University but their parents leave for Berlin. Vladimir is lonely and misses his family horribly. He does not want to be at the University and instead hides in literature, reading all day and writing at night. He also doesn't realize that the University is a protected environment; whilst he is a student, nobody bothers him. After graduation, he is considered an "alien", and as a Russian emigre is treated with suspicion and distrust. He is plunged into poverty and is not allowed to travel far, although he does manage to get to Paris, then Berlin. He teaches and continues to write but nobody in Russia is able to read his work because he is an ex-pat and his books are banned. By the late 1930s he is married and the father of a son, taking his family to America in 1940. The Nabokovs want to raise their son the way that they themselves were raised; Vladimir wants him to have a creative imagination all of his own, and for this reason never points out sites or points of interest; he wants his son to see them for himself.
