Memory, p.48
Memory, page 48
And here the essential question first appeared: did I recognise her?
According to these photographs, sometimes I recognised a region of her face, a certain relation of nose and forehead, the movement of her arms, her hands. I never recognised her except in fragments, which is to say that I missed her being, and that therefore I missed her altogether. It was not she, and yet it was no one else. I would have recognised her among thousands of other women, yet I did not ‘find’ her. I recognised her differentially, not essentially. Photography therefore compelled me to perform a painful labour; straining toward the essence of her identity, I was struggling among images partially true and therefore totally false. To say, confronted with a certain photography, ‘that’s almost the way she was!’, was more distressing than to say, confronted with another, ‘that’s not the way she was at all’. The almost: love’s dreadful regime, but also the dream’s disappointing status, which is why I hate dreams. For I often dream about her (I dream only about her), but it is never quite my mother: sometimes in the dream, there is something misplaced, something excessive: for example, something playful or casual – which she never was; or again I know it is she, but I do not see her features (but do we see in dreams, or do we know?): I dream about her, I do not dream her. And confronted with the photograph, as in the dream, it is the same effort, the same Sisyphean labour: to reascend, straining toward the essence, to climb back down without having seen it, and to begin all over again.
From BILLY COLLINS, ‘Forgetfulness’ (1991)
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of.
It is as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to acknowledge the following publishers, individuals, agencies and institutions for their kind permission to reproduce copyright material, as listed below. Where the edition used differs from that of the publishers acknowledged this is indicated in brackets, with the publication date. Every effort has been made to trace and contact all copyright holders, and the publishers would be pleased to rectify any omissions brought to their notice at the earliest opportunity.
DANIEL L. ALKON: Memory’s Voice: Deciphering the Mind–Brain Code (© 1991 Daniel L. Alkon), HarperCollins Publishers Inc.; Blackwell Publishing; MARTIN AMIS: Experience (Jonathan Cape, 2000), Random House UK and the Wylie Agency, Inc.; anon: Rhetorica ad Herrenium, translated by Harry Caplan, from Cicero: Volume 1, lcl 403 (© 1954 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College), Harvard University Press and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library; DANIEL ARASSE: Anselm Kiefer, translated by Mary Whittall (2001), Thames & Hudson, London and Editions du Regard, Paris; owen barfield: History in English Words (Faber and Faber 1962), the Owen Barfield Literary Estate; ROLAND BARTHES: Camera Lucida, translated by Richard Howard, (1981) Editions du Seuil, Paris and Farrar, Straus & Giroux; JULIAN BARNES: translation of Alphonse Daudet, In The Land Of Pain (Jonathan Cape, 2002), Random House UK, Random House inc., and PFD (The Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group); F.C. BARTLETT: A Theory of Remembering (1932:1995), Cambridge University Press; SAMUEL BECKETT: Happy Days (1987), Faber and Faber and Grove/Atlantic Inc.; COLIN BLAKEMORE: Mechanics of the Mind (1977), Cambridge University Press; JORGE LUIS BORGES: ‘Funes the Memorious’, translated by James E. Irby, from Labyrinths (King Penguin 1981) © 1962, 1964, New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York and Pollinger Ltd., London; ITALO CALVINO: Invisible Cities translated by William Weaver (1974; Vintage Classics 1997), Random House UK, Inc. and Vintage Canada; MARY J. CARRUTHERS: ‘Hugh of St Cher’s Bear’, The Book of Memory (1992), Cambridge University Press; MARY J. CARRUTHERS and JAN M. ZIOLKOWSKI, ed.: ‘Thomas Bradwardine’ The Medieval Craft of Memory (2002), University of Pennsylvania Press; JEAN-PIERRE CHANGEUX AND PAUL RICOEUR: What Makes us Think (2000), Princeton University Press; RICHARD COE: When the Grass was Taller: Autobiography and the Experience of Childhood (1984), Yale University Press; R.G. COLLINGWOOD: Speculum Mentis (Clarendon Press, 1924), Oxford University Press; BILLY COLLINS: ‘Forgetfulness’, Questions about Angels (1991), by kind permission of the author and Pittsburgh University Press; FRANCIS CRICK: The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (© 1994 by the Francis H. C. Crick and Odile Crick Revocable Trust), Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group; RICHARD DAWKINS: The Selfish Gene (1989), Oxford University Press; BRIAN DILLON: In the Dark Room (2006), Penguin Group UK; OLLIVIER DYENS: ‘The Sadness of the Machine’ (11.2.2001), CTheory, University of Victoria, Canada; ECONOMIST: ‘Sleeping on it’, © The Economist Newspaper, London, 4.2.2006; G.M. EDELMAN: ‘Building a Picture of the Brain’, from The Brain, ed. G. M. Edelman and Jean-Pierre Changeux, © 2001 Transaction Publishers, Piscataway, New Jersey; FORD MADOX FORD: Memories and Impressions (Bodley Head, 1911), David Higham Associates; E.M. FORSTER: Aspects of the Novel (1927), The Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge, and The Society of Authors as the Literary Representatives of the Estate of E.M. Forster; MICHAEL FRAYN: Copenhagen (Methuen Drama 1998), PFD (The Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group); SIGMUND FREUD: Screen Memories and other works, Random House UK; PAUL FUSSELL, The Great War and Modern Memory (1976), Oxford University Press Inc; JACQUES LE GOFF: Histoire et mémoire, (Gallimard, 1988), Einaudi; e.h. gombrich: Art and Illusion (1960, 2000), Princeton University Press; HENRY GREEN: Pack My Bag (Hogarth Press, 1940), © The Estate of Henry Green), Random House UK and New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York; IAN HACKING: Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Science of Memory (1998 edition), Princeton University Press; NICHOLAS HARBERD: Seed to Seed (2006), Bloomsbury Publishing; CYRIL HARE: He Should Have Died Hereafter (1958), AP Watt Ltd on behalf of Charles Gordon Clark; SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH: ‘Guard Dog of Good Deeds’ (21.3.03), Times Literary Supplement; EVA HOFFMAN: Shtetl (Chatto & Windus, 1997), by kind permission of the author and Random House UK; TED HUGHES: ‘Fingers’, Birthday Letters (1998), Faber and Faber, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux Inc.; ABU ALI AHMAD IBN MUHAMMAD MISKAWAYH in H.F. Amedroz and D.S. Margliouth: The Eclipse of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate (Oxford University Press, 1920–21), ROBERT IRWIN: Night and Horses and Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature (1999, © Robert Irwin 1999), Penguin Group UK and Overlook Press; GEORGE JOHNSON: In the Palaces of Memory: How We Build the World Inside Our Heads (Vintage, 1992, © George Johnson 1991), Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc.; C.G. JUNG: Memories, Dreams, Reflections, edited by Aniela Jaffe, translated by Richard & Clara Winston (© 1961, 1962, 1963 and renewed 1989, 1990, 1991), Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.; ERIK R. KANDEL: In Search of Memory (2007), W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York; FRANK KERMODE: ‘Palaces of Memory’, Index on Censorship (Vol. 30, 1/ 2001); MELANIE KLEIN: ‘The Psychogenesis of Tics’, Love, Guilt, Reparation and other works 1921–1945 (1975), Simon & Schuster; MILAN KUNDERA: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, translated by A. 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LURIA: The Mind of a Mnemonist (Basic Books, 1968), by kind permission of Michael Cole; JOHN MCCRONE: ‘Not-so Total Recall’, New Scientist, 3 May 2003; HILARY MANTEL: Giving up the Ghost (2003), HarperCollins Publishers UK; ‘Father Figured’, © Daily Telegraph 23 April 2005; GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ: Living To Tell The Tale (2003), Carmen Balcells Agency, Barcelona; WILLIAM MAXWELL: So Long, See You Tomorrow (Vintage, 1980), Alfred A. Knopf and Random House UK; TONI MORRISON: Beloved (Chatto & Windus, 1987), International Creative Management Inc., New York, and Random House UK; EDWIN MUIR: An Autobiography, (Methuen University Paperbacks, 1964), Random House UK; HARUKI MURAKAMI: interview with Mick Brown (16.8.2003), Daily Telegraph Magazine; VLADIMIR NABOKOV: Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (Gollancz, 1951), Smith/Skolnik Literary Management, Plainfield, New Jersey; CEES NOOTEBOOM: Rituals, translated by Adrienne Dixon (Harvill Press, 1996), Random House UK and Harcourt Inc.; I.P. PAVLOV: Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes, translated by W. Horsley Gantt (1927), International Publishers, New York; STEVEN PINKER: The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind (© Steven Pinker 1994), Penguin Group UK; F.A. 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YOUNG: Programs of the Brain (1978), Oxford University Press; SEMIR ZEKI: ‘Art and the Brain’, Daedalus 127:2 (Spring 1988), © 1988 American Academy of Arts and Sciences; STEFAN ZWEIG: ‘Buchmendel’, Fantastic Night and other Stories (2004), Pushkin Press.
Index
The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
Ad Herennium see Rhetorica ad Herennium
Adams, Henry 6
Aksakov, Sergei: A Russian Schoolboy 337, 338
Alkon, Daniel L.: Memory’s Voice 258–60
Amis, Martin: Experience 343–4
Anderson, Richard 261
Arasse, Daniel: Anselm Kiefer 226–9, 373–4
Arendt, Dr Thomas 278–9 Aristotle 99, 362, 364
History of Animals 230
On Memory and Recollection 115, 159–60, 245
Arnold, Roseanne Barr 351–2
Aubrey, John: Brief Lives 199
Auden, W. H.: ‘Journey to Iceland’ 31
Augustine, St: Confessions xiv, xvii, 3–6, 8, 11, 12, 54–5, 120, 162–5, 172 and n
Aussaresses, General Paul: memoirs 93
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park 54
Axel, Richard 108
Bach, Johann Sebastian: Goldberg Variations 16, 17, 18
Bachelard, Gaston: The Poetics of Space 151–3
Bacon, Francis: The Advancement of Learning 198–9
Baddeley, Alan 56, 58
Baldwin, James M. 71, 72, 73
Barfield, Owen: History in English Words 181
Barthes, Roland 6
Camera Lucida 399
Bartlett, F. C.: Remembering 186, 240–42, 247
Bateson, Patrick: ‘Memory and Evolution’ xvii, 68–79
Baudelaire, Charles 182, 345
Beckett, Samuel Happy Days 142–3
Krapp’s Last Tape 39
Waiting for Godot 35
Beethoven, Ludwig van Piano Sonata in C, Opus 111 27
Thirty-three Variations on Waltz by Diabelli 15–18
Bellini, Giovanni 22
Bellow, Saul 39
The Adventures of Augie March 30, 39
Herzog 39
Belot, Jean 215n
Beowulf 289
Bergson, Henri 111, 184
Matter and Memory 17–9
Beuys, Joseph 227, 228
Beyle, Marie Henri see Stendhal
Blakemore, Colin: Mechanics of the Mind 244–6
Bliss, Tim 61
Blume, E. Sue 354
Borges, Jorge Luis: ‘Funes the Memorious’ 206–13
Boswell, James 325–9
Bowie, Malcolm: ‘Remembering the Future’ xvii, 13–27
Bradshaw, John: ‘Incest …’ 354–5
Bradwardine, Thomas: ‘On Acquiring a Trained Memory’ 119, 196–8
Briere, John: Child Abuse Trauma 354
Brown, Roger and Kulik, James: ‘Flashbulb Memories’ 82, 85, 87
Browne, Sir Thomas
Hydrotaphia 167
Religio 391
Browning, Robert: ‘Memorabilia’ 301
Bruno, Giordano 120, 215n, 216, 218, 220
Buck, Linda 108
Buñuel, Luis: Memoirs xi Burton, Robert: The Anatomy of Melancholy 166
Bush, President George W. 86
Butler, Samuel: ‘Henry Hoare’s Torn Finger-Nail’ 127–8
Byatt, A. S.: ‘A Stone Woman’ 44–6, 47–8, 5–2
Cahill, Larry 269
Calvino, Italo: Invisible Cities 339
Carey, Susan 262
Carlyle, Thomas 329, 347–8
Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass xi, 302
Carruthers, Mary J.: The Book of Memory 224–5
Caunes, Antoine de: Monsieur N 91
Cavalier, Jean 97–8
Celan, Paul xx
Todesfuge 374
Cézanne, Paul 252
Changeux, Jean-Pierre xvi–xvii (with Paul Ricoeur) What Makes Us Think? 183–7
Chateaubriand, François-René de:
Mémoires d’outre-tombe 392 Chesterton, G. K.: Autobiography 117, 134–5
Cicero: De Oratore 119, 188–9, 390
Clare, John: ‘Remembrances’ 124–6
Clarke, Marisse 98–9
Coe, Richard: When the Grass was Taller 146
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 111
The Ancient Mariner 42, 46–7, 53
Biographia Literaria 103–4, 106, 170, 394–5
‘Frost at Midnight’ 102, 103
‘Kubla Khan’ 112
Notebooks 103
‘Religious Musings’ 102–3
Collingwood, R. G.: Speculum Mentis 179
Collins, Billy: ‘Forgetfulness’ 400
Connolly, Cyril: The Unquiet Grave 398
Conrad, Joseph 396–7
Constable, John 332
Crick, Francis 257
The Astonishing Hypothesis 100, 262–4
Damasio, Antonio 40, 42, 117
‘The Hidden Gifts of Memory’ xv, 279–85
Looking for Spinoza 121
Dante Alighieri: Inferno xi, 5, 118
Darwin, Charles
The Descent of Man 68–9 and n
On the Origin of Species 69n
Daudet, Alphonse: In the Land of Pain 397–8
Davy, Sir Humphry: Salmonia … 104–5
Dawkins, Richard: The Selfish Gene 255–6
Dennett, Dan 74
De Quincey, Thomas 117
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater 122–3
‘Suspiria de Profundis’ 298–300
Diabelli, Anton: Waltz 15, 16
Dick, Philip K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 387n
Digital Preservation Coalition: action plan 388–9
Dillon, Brian: In the Dark Room 151–3
Dudai, Yadin 262
Dyens, Ollivier: ‘The Sadness of the Machine’ 381–7
Ebbinghaus, Hermann: Über das Gedächtnis (On Memory) 55–6, 186
Ebert, Thomas 287
Economist, The: ‘Sleeping on it’ 277–9
Edelman, Gerald M.: ‘Building a Picture of the Brain’ 264–6
Eliot, George
Daniel Deronda 116, 303
Middlemarch 29, 116, 302–3
Silas Marner xviii, 40, 41, 42–3, 48–52
Eliot, T. S. 34
The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism 28
