Wow. Extraordinary, Kathleen. That could have been three or four posts. So much deep thinking. I'll have to read this a couple more times and mull it over. Thank you.
So much treasure in this so I'll just pick one jewel:
"While there may be pros to remembering correctly, which we are inclined not to do, remembering in a faulty manner is part of our unique consciousness as well as our imagination and creativity"
Not only does this give a positive view of something I had always imagined to be a weakness, it also encourages a less judgmental view of others and of ourselves when our accounts of the past differ. Thank you.
The Memory Police is probably my favorite novel by a contemporary author. I'm glad to read your thoughts on it.
But I'm 50/50 about memory in literature. While we can no doubt ascertain that memory plays a role in inspiration especially post-Proust, many of the best novelists have been able to create fiction that stands completely apart from the novelist's memories and subjective experiences. From an academic perspective it's understandably harder to separate. But Kundera, for instance, or Victor Hugo are just two examples of authors who have written masterpieces that stand apart from their memory irrespective of how dependent they actually were. In Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame in the chapter where he describes the physical features of the Notre Dame, he does it impeccably but in a way where the reader is none the wiser as to whether Hugo went there and recorded the details in person, or read about it in a book. I think nowadays, the trend is to depend a lot on memory as well as subjectivity since we've been told that objectivity is itself a fiction and is impossible, an argument that I think is based simply upon observations made of a society that has been unserious for decades now. (The exiling of Gabriele D'Annunzio from literary polite society due to his politics was also an exile of the most influential author of the "objective novel") Whether true or not, the result is that people (including writers) have stopped behaving as if there is an opposite end to the spectrum. Ernaux is a good example of this, especially after the faux objectivity of A Man's Place. Because of these conditions, we get a greater dependence upon memory by virtue of depending more upon our subjective emotions, which in turn are stimulated by memories.
Kundera once said that far from being exhausted, the novel continuously misses out on new opportunities. Nowadays, every novelist who ignores an objective story idea is missing an opportunity. On the topic of what authors have said, Cormac McCarthy also said that the best literature is about death. Another bit of authoritative advice should your students need it. :)
I think you bring up wonderful points and examples, Felix. The Notre Dame passage is extraordinary! My point about memory here is also that the way one might interpret research to create fiction or relay such details you describe could be dependent on their own memories, in a more world-view sort of orientation. I think that what we actually experience (and the way it remains in our minds) influences the way we imagine or interpret what we read about. This is not to negate or take away from what you've said here.
This point about objectivity being defunct -- I think you're onto something there and I really need to mull it over further and consider how this may have happened. This could be a fascinating idea to explore further in writing. It goes deeper than a 'post-truth era' and really considers the way it affects fiction as well as 'news' / facts etc. Love all these references and especially McCarthy! I've just picked up Passenger and the accompanying text (account from the sister of the protagonist). He's one of my favorites and can't wait to read it. No doubt, it is about death :) And I wonder how it will enter the dialogue of the ideas you discuss above. Thanks a lot Felix.
Love this! You’ve given me some things to add to my reading list. And it’s related to my current book project, which posits that some historical novelists are creating a hypothetical phenomenology of the past which merges past and present memory.
Hilary Mantel, Patrick O'Brian, Rose Tremain, Daniel Kehlman, Arthur Phillips. Actually, I've posted a draft of the introduction on my second Substack, Books in Progress: https://booksinprogress.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=kyg3a I've kept this Substack fairly low profile, since it's primarily academic rough drafts, but please subscribe if you're interested :)
What a fascinating post. Thank you! It's also great to see another fan of Yoko Ogawa. I love her writing.
On memory and autobiography, Janet Malcolm had this to say (in the context of a journalist struggling to write autobiographically): "Memory is not a journalist’s tool. Memory glimmers and hints, but shows nothing sharply or clearly. Memory does not narrate or render character. Memory has no regard for the reader. If an autobiography is to be even minimally readable, the autobiographer must step in and subdue what you could call memory’s autism, its passion for the tedious. He must not be afraid to invent. Above all he must invent himself." https://www.nybooks.com/online/2010/03/25/thoughts-on-autobiography-from-an-abandoned/
This is an intriguing piece of writing Kate. You skillfully bring together a large amount of research and bring it to life through the lens of these four novels, which I can’t wait to check out. Reading this made me think a lot about my own memory, and how it affects the way that I write novels.
Gosh Kate what an incredible post full of so much. Saving this to come back to. I've only read The Memory Police from here. Amazing notes from you on everything here.
I've just started Solenoid. I guess it'd be autofiction. I think. It's incredible. I think you'd like it too.
I had to look that up and now I remember seeing something in The New Yorker. It looks like an incredible recommendation. Thanks a lot and thanks for the kind comment!
Ah that's great. I saw a fragment of a review a while ago, then caught someone here on Substack mention it so I downloaded the sample and read it over the last few days, savouring the words. I need to buy the physical edition, I think. It feels like a book I must own physically.
Excellent. Will take that advice as well! I’m visiting my inlaws in England and currently have 7 books to bring back 😅...but I’m sure I can squeeze in one more ;)
Listened to this again to tonight Kathleen. Fascinating stuff. My immediate thoughts went to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, in which personal and collective memory intertwine and reformulate one another in the person of Thomas Cromwell. There is this gap in the historical record about Cromwell's formative years in Europe, and Mantel uses it to explore the themes of remembering and forgetting. Cromwell has this brilliant memory (imagined by Mantel as a "mind palace" mnemonic system) but as the Trilogy progresses, his mind fills up with the dead, and he is increasingly haunted. At the same time he is ridding England of the cult of saints, making the collective forget the hauntings of the Catholic saints. Mantel seems to present history as this exorcism of the past, doomed perhaps to fail, for it continues to create more ghosts. Sorry that was a bit of a ramble, but the topic interests me. Thank you for this post!
I have not read Wolf Hall yet, Simon! I would love to join your book group on it but don't have enough time at the moment. However, I understand you do it every year?! Amazing. I did see the TV adaptation, so I know a little of the story.
What a wonderful concept you bring up -- this haunting! Wow. It is incredible as a literary feature as well as considering the way our own minds fill up with 'death' perhaps in this way. He lived an extreme life, sure, but all of us to some extent might experience this.
Thanks so much for this great comment as well as listening again :)
No worries. Next year will be a first for slow reading Wolf Hall. But my plan is to make a series of posts on substack so anyone can readalong in their own time in the future.
I'm fond of saying all stories are ghost stories. Which is something along the lines of memory being intrinsic to novels.
Thanks for this, Kate, I think it's one I need to listen to again as it contains so much! But I listened this morning on my walk (in an unseasonably warm UK) and found the discussions around memory and fiction and the blending of narratives particularly interesting. It resonated with some stuff I've been working on, so it inspired me to get writing this morning! :)
Love that these ideas are in dialogue with some of your writing, Kate! If I may go on a Substack tangent for a moment -- I'm really enjoying how this network allows us to go deeper as writers/thinkers in this way. Through comments as well as through those readers who are also writers (or creators - filmmakers for example) creating a much bigger dialogue than the one we first publish.
Thanks for your comments and for listening! Yes it is so warm. While it freaks me out, I'm also enjoying the summer weather in Europe and am only getting back on my computer now. :)
Exactly! This is why I started writing my second 'afterthoughts' post recently, as I often felt that the comments section raised such interesting points that I hadn't always thought about in the original piece. It's nice to return to it with some input from readers.
Thanks for this post and all the intriguing recommendations Kathleen! You raise many good points, and I like that you point out to your students that death is part of life (and part of understanding our full humanity). I have approached memory from an additional angle in "The Great Forgetting", where I discuss that our increasing dependence on outsourcing our memory to technology is leading to the withering of culture. I will be interested in adding some of your suggested novels to my reading list. Thanks Kathleen :)
"Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory." - Joshua Foer, USA Memory Champion
Thanks so much for your comments, Ruth! As well as the great quote.
I really like what you've added to the discussion - the great forgetting is certainly something that I'm interested in. Part of this is positive - we outsource memory and therefore have more capacity for it and for other things. But much of it is frightening. And I also worry that young people 'trained' in this way lose a lot of ability to think for themselves. It's important to talk about it and consider how it affects us. Thanks again!
I’ve got copy of The Memory Police and now I’m really looking forward to it. One novel I’d add to the last is one of Haruki Murakami’s earlier works, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which alternates realities, and in one the narrator is missing their memory. Emotionally Weird might be a tangential, but it has a lot of stories within stories that deal with familial memory.
It is SO GOOD, Ellen. I had it on my shelf for ages before I tackled it (don't always dive into dystopias haha). I was completely hooked after a couple pages and finished it swiftly only to seek to read it again.
I know this Murakami book and absolutely love it. It's been a while since I read it, but really found it genius. You've inspired me to go back to at least parts of it. Thanks for your suggestion!
Thank you for recommending Antonio Munoz Molina. Walking in cities we used to know takes you into the realm of the paranormal and leads us to question what memory is and what it serves. I just wrote about my wanderings in Paris having the same experience.
I love this deep dive very much. I have been thinking and writing a lot about time and memory lately. Have you read Sarah Maguso's Ongoingness: The End of a Diary? it's small and lovely and I feel like you would like it.
This is so cool! The thought that memories aren't so completely tied up with one's identity is very intriguing. Memory and manipulation of memories and disassociating memories play a big part in my story, as memory ties into telepathy. Misty's memories are so twisted that she doesn't know what is real and what has been manipulated, and sometimes wishes she could forget all the trauma and start over. Luke's ability to manipulate memories, albeit temporarily, allows him to create an artificial relationship with almost anyone and then you start to wonder how many relationships he has 'created' that way.
Sorry, my head is full of this stuff right now. I'm finding it hard to think of anything else.
But, it's true that traumatic and painful memories needn't define a person. And it's your actions that make you who you are.
Wow. Extraordinary, Kathleen. That could have been three or four posts. So much deep thinking. I'll have to read this a couple more times and mull it over. Thank you.
Thanks so much, Mike! Your thoughts welcome anytime :)
So much treasure in this so I'll just pick one jewel:
"While there may be pros to remembering correctly, which we are inclined not to do, remembering in a faulty manner is part of our unique consciousness as well as our imagination and creativity"
Not only does this give a positive view of something I had always imagined to be a weakness, it also encourages a less judgmental view of others and of ourselves when our accounts of the past differ. Thank you.
Aw thanks so much! I love the way you extend the idea, Jules, to a our experiences with others.
The Memory Police is probably my favorite novel by a contemporary author. I'm glad to read your thoughts on it.
But I'm 50/50 about memory in literature. While we can no doubt ascertain that memory plays a role in inspiration especially post-Proust, many of the best novelists have been able to create fiction that stands completely apart from the novelist's memories and subjective experiences. From an academic perspective it's understandably harder to separate. But Kundera, for instance, or Victor Hugo are just two examples of authors who have written masterpieces that stand apart from their memory irrespective of how dependent they actually were. In Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame in the chapter where he describes the physical features of the Notre Dame, he does it impeccably but in a way where the reader is none the wiser as to whether Hugo went there and recorded the details in person, or read about it in a book. I think nowadays, the trend is to depend a lot on memory as well as subjectivity since we've been told that objectivity is itself a fiction and is impossible, an argument that I think is based simply upon observations made of a society that has been unserious for decades now. (The exiling of Gabriele D'Annunzio from literary polite society due to his politics was also an exile of the most influential author of the "objective novel") Whether true or not, the result is that people (including writers) have stopped behaving as if there is an opposite end to the spectrum. Ernaux is a good example of this, especially after the faux objectivity of A Man's Place. Because of these conditions, we get a greater dependence upon memory by virtue of depending more upon our subjective emotions, which in turn are stimulated by memories.
Kundera once said that far from being exhausted, the novel continuously misses out on new opportunities. Nowadays, every novelist who ignores an objective story idea is missing an opportunity. On the topic of what authors have said, Cormac McCarthy also said that the best literature is about death. Another bit of authoritative advice should your students need it. :)
I think you bring up wonderful points and examples, Felix. The Notre Dame passage is extraordinary! My point about memory here is also that the way one might interpret research to create fiction or relay such details you describe could be dependent on their own memories, in a more world-view sort of orientation. I think that what we actually experience (and the way it remains in our minds) influences the way we imagine or interpret what we read about. This is not to negate or take away from what you've said here.
This point about objectivity being defunct -- I think you're onto something there and I really need to mull it over further and consider how this may have happened. This could be a fascinating idea to explore further in writing. It goes deeper than a 'post-truth era' and really considers the way it affects fiction as well as 'news' / facts etc. Love all these references and especially McCarthy! I've just picked up Passenger and the accompanying text (account from the sister of the protagonist). He's one of my favorites and can't wait to read it. No doubt, it is about death :) And I wonder how it will enter the dialogue of the ideas you discuss above. Thanks a lot Felix.
Love this! You’ve given me some things to add to my reading list. And it’s related to my current book project, which posits that some historical novelists are creating a hypothetical phenomenology of the past which merges past and present memory.
Wow, John, really interested in your book project! Sounds fascinating. So curious whom you will be discussing. Any teasers?
Hilary Mantel, Patrick O'Brian, Rose Tremain, Daniel Kehlman, Arthur Phillips. Actually, I've posted a draft of the introduction on my second Substack, Books in Progress: https://booksinprogress.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=kyg3a I've kept this Substack fairly low profile, since it's primarily academic rough drafts, but please subscribe if you're interested :)
Sounds exciting and I’m definitely going to check out that Stack!
This is a fascinating post. Saving to come back to later as there is so much to unpack.
Thanks Simon!
What a fascinating post. Thank you! It's also great to see another fan of Yoko Ogawa. I love her writing.
On memory and autobiography, Janet Malcolm had this to say (in the context of a journalist struggling to write autobiographically): "Memory is not a journalist’s tool. Memory glimmers and hints, but shows nothing sharply or clearly. Memory does not narrate or render character. Memory has no regard for the reader. If an autobiography is to be even minimally readable, the autobiographer must step in and subdue what you could call memory’s autism, its passion for the tedious. He must not be afraid to invent. Above all he must invent himself." https://www.nybooks.com/online/2010/03/25/thoughts-on-autobiography-from-an-abandoned/
That’s an amazing quote! Love that. And so interesting to think of memory’s roll in other kinds of writing. Thanks Jeffrey!
This is an intriguing piece of writing Kate. You skillfully bring together a large amount of research and bring it to life through the lens of these four novels, which I can’t wait to check out. Reading this made me think a lot about my own memory, and how it affects the way that I write novels.
That’s great, Ben. Thanks so much for the comment and hope you enjoy the books sometime!
Gosh Kate what an incredible post full of so much. Saving this to come back to. I've only read The Memory Police from here. Amazing notes from you on everything here.
I've just started Solenoid. I guess it'd be autofiction. I think. It's incredible. I think you'd like it too.
I had to look that up and now I remember seeing something in The New Yorker. It looks like an incredible recommendation. Thanks a lot and thanks for the kind comment!
Ah that's great. I saw a fragment of a review a while ago, then caught someone here on Substack mention it so I downloaded the sample and read it over the last few days, savouring the words. I need to buy the physical edition, I think. It feels like a book I must own physically.
Excellent. Will take that advice as well! I’m visiting my inlaws in England and currently have 7 books to bring back 😅...but I’m sure I can squeeze in one more ;)
Hehehe, half a suitcase. That's OK. Who needs clothes?
Listened to this again to tonight Kathleen. Fascinating stuff. My immediate thoughts went to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, in which personal and collective memory intertwine and reformulate one another in the person of Thomas Cromwell. There is this gap in the historical record about Cromwell's formative years in Europe, and Mantel uses it to explore the themes of remembering and forgetting. Cromwell has this brilliant memory (imagined by Mantel as a "mind palace" mnemonic system) but as the Trilogy progresses, his mind fills up with the dead, and he is increasingly haunted. At the same time he is ridding England of the cult of saints, making the collective forget the hauntings of the Catholic saints. Mantel seems to present history as this exorcism of the past, doomed perhaps to fail, for it continues to create more ghosts. Sorry that was a bit of a ramble, but the topic interests me. Thank you for this post!
I have not read Wolf Hall yet, Simon! I would love to join your book group on it but don't have enough time at the moment. However, I understand you do it every year?! Amazing. I did see the TV adaptation, so I know a little of the story.
What a wonderful concept you bring up -- this haunting! Wow. It is incredible as a literary feature as well as considering the way our own minds fill up with 'death' perhaps in this way. He lived an extreme life, sure, but all of us to some extent might experience this.
Thanks so much for this great comment as well as listening again :)
No worries. Next year will be a first for slow reading Wolf Hall. But my plan is to make a series of posts on substack so anyone can readalong in their own time in the future.
I'm fond of saying all stories are ghost stories. Which is something along the lines of memory being intrinsic to novels.
Also a cool idea! Ok, I'll join you one way or another :)
Thanks for this, Kate, I think it's one I need to listen to again as it contains so much! But I listened this morning on my walk (in an unseasonably warm UK) and found the discussions around memory and fiction and the blending of narratives particularly interesting. It resonated with some stuff I've been working on, so it inspired me to get writing this morning! :)
Love that these ideas are in dialogue with some of your writing, Kate! If I may go on a Substack tangent for a moment -- I'm really enjoying how this network allows us to go deeper as writers/thinkers in this way. Through comments as well as through those readers who are also writers (or creators - filmmakers for example) creating a much bigger dialogue than the one we first publish.
Thanks for your comments and for listening! Yes it is so warm. While it freaks me out, I'm also enjoying the summer weather in Europe and am only getting back on my computer now. :)
Exactly! This is why I started writing my second 'afterthoughts' post recently, as I often felt that the comments section raised such interesting points that I hadn't always thought about in the original piece. It's nice to return to it with some input from readers.
Thanks for this post and all the intriguing recommendations Kathleen! You raise many good points, and I like that you point out to your students that death is part of life (and part of understanding our full humanity). I have approached memory from an additional angle in "The Great Forgetting", where I discuss that our increasing dependence on outsourcing our memory to technology is leading to the withering of culture. I will be interested in adding some of your suggested novels to my reading list. Thanks Kathleen :)
"Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory." - Joshua Foer, USA Memory Champion
Thanks so much for your comments, Ruth! As well as the great quote.
I really like what you've added to the discussion - the great forgetting is certainly something that I'm interested in. Part of this is positive - we outsource memory and therefore have more capacity for it and for other things. But much of it is frightening. And I also worry that young people 'trained' in this way lose a lot of ability to think for themselves. It's important to talk about it and consider how it affects us. Thanks again!
I’ve got copy of The Memory Police and now I’m really looking forward to it. One novel I’d add to the last is one of Haruki Murakami’s earlier works, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which alternates realities, and in one the narrator is missing their memory. Emotionally Weird might be a tangential, but it has a lot of stories within stories that deal with familial memory.
It is SO GOOD, Ellen. I had it on my shelf for ages before I tackled it (don't always dive into dystopias haha). I was completely hooked after a couple pages and finished it swiftly only to seek to read it again.
I know this Murakami book and absolutely love it. It's been a while since I read it, but really found it genius. You've inspired me to go back to at least parts of it. Thanks for your suggestion!
This is a fantastic post! Thank you for the time and effort in its creation.
Thanks so much Brian! Appreciate the kind words.
Thank you for recommending Antonio Munoz Molina. Walking in cities we used to know takes you into the realm of the paranormal and leads us to question what memory is and what it serves. I just wrote about my wanderings in Paris having the same experience.
...like the ghosts of the city, the uncanny
Thanks a lot. Love the way you describe it. This happens to me especially in Paris as well
I love this deep dive very much. I have been thinking and writing a lot about time and memory lately. Have you read Sarah Maguso's Ongoingness: The End of a Diary? it's small and lovely and I feel like you would like it.
I haven’t. Thank you so much for the rec and the kind words!
This is so cool! The thought that memories aren't so completely tied up with one's identity is very intriguing. Memory and manipulation of memories and disassociating memories play a big part in my story, as memory ties into telepathy. Misty's memories are so twisted that she doesn't know what is real and what has been manipulated, and sometimes wishes she could forget all the trauma and start over. Luke's ability to manipulate memories, albeit temporarily, allows him to create an artificial relationship with almost anyone and then you start to wonder how many relationships he has 'created' that way.
Sorry, my head is full of this stuff right now. I'm finding it hard to think of anything else.
But, it's true that traumatic and painful memories needn't define a person. And it's your actions that make you who you are.
That's great! No need to be sorry :) I love to hear how it works with people's own writing. Intriguing ideas in your fiction.
I'm so glad you think so too! I'm having a blast with this one.
Love it. We should come back to it on this season of the podcast coming up. Seems a lot of fiction writers on here are experimenting.
Looking forward to it. 😉