Last week I began reading Nabokov's autobiography. I casually took the book from a dusty shelf and, while leafing through it, got suddenly seized by a few random passages.

Among the images that left a mark is that of a diamond ring Nabokov remembered his mother usually wore when he was a child. He states more or less: "Had I been a fortune teller, I'd have seen in those diamonds images of the exile the ring would help paying in future years." Pure cinema in a few words.

Later on I found another reason to go on reading—I had just finished a fine book by Sheila Fitzpatrick about the Russian Revolution, and suddenly thought it would be interesting to catch a glimpse of such historical process through the eyes of a bourgeois family forced to exile. Vladimir Nabokov's literary talent and his (class) insights are obviously a plus.

I have also set myself the goal of devoting some weeks to seeing most of the early Soviet cinema I can get my hands on.