Okay, indulge me for a moment.
I am reading Until I Find You (which has an epigraph that is germane to this post which I'll post below) and, concurrently, Duma Key. Both books, it occurred to me last night, are about the unreliability of one's memory. I find myself relaying stories and anecdotes to friends or even here on this site and I wonder just how accurate that memory is. The details don't matter, only the essence of the story and the veracity of the teller, right? I suppose so, after all, we're not on trial or under oath.
The most honest person may, through embellishments and stubborn biases, and with little notice of fading details, unintentionally give the most frayed representation of what actually happened. These things haunt me.
So then, we're not talking about the importance of historical accuracy and the endeavor to have it thus written down with sobriety, but coming to a realization that, despite our greatest effort, all our memories are flawed. Regardless of the chronology of any particular memory, it will always be skewed through a myriad of filters, fragile and imperfect. William Maxwell said it better in his novel So Long, See You Tomorrow:
"What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory- meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion- is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw."
John Irving, through the vicarious vehicle of a novel, uses his fictional character Jack Burns to comprehend his own memories (be they malleable or vivid as stars); keeping great storytelling paramount, and embracing the freedom of fiction, Irving is able to "rearrange things" in such a way that he can bare his soul without fear of reproach.
Edgar Freemantle, the protagonist of Duma Key, is injured on the job and suffers a horrific loss of memory
. Similar to Irving, this possibly could be King's own exercise in catharsis, following a near fatal accident nearly a decade prior to this book. His book is filled with the double-edged sword of memory. Some things we ache to remember and some things we wish to forget.
Edgar wonders, "How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends."
Have you ever wondered this? Like waves washing over scroll in the sand, our memory is fading. (I could go on about this topic and, conversely, tell about the mysterious way some older people, just before death, can recite poems from their childhood and tell you what color their first teddy bear was). How much of our memories are not memories at all but things that were told to us? Is it important? Maybe we are all storytellers, desperately grasping out for a warm hand in the dark, wanting to find the truth in our stories while lying "with every breath we draw."
In the throes of death, Hamlet pleads with his best friend, "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world, draw thy breath in pain to tell my story."
The desire for validation (like the desire to be loved) is universal. Maybe that is the greatest use for memory, to keep our stories alive. Will you "remember to remember"?
I am reading Until I Find You (which has an epigraph that is germane to this post which I'll post below) and, concurrently, Duma Key. Both books, it occurred to me last night, are about the unreliability of one's memory. I find myself relaying stories and anecdotes to friends or even here on this site and I wonder just how accurate that memory is. The details don't matter, only the essence of the story and the veracity of the teller, right? I suppose so, after all, we're not on trial or under oath.
The most honest person may, through embellishments and stubborn biases, and with little notice of fading details, unintentionally give the most frayed representation of what actually happened. These things haunt me.
So then, we're not talking about the importance of historical accuracy and the endeavor to have it thus written down with sobriety, but coming to a realization that, despite our greatest effort, all our memories are flawed. Regardless of the chronology of any particular memory, it will always be skewed through a myriad of filters, fragile and imperfect. William Maxwell said it better in his novel So Long, See You Tomorrow:
"What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory- meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion- is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw."
John Irving, through the vicarious vehicle of a novel, uses his fictional character Jack Burns to comprehend his own memories (be they malleable or vivid as stars); keeping great storytelling paramount, and embracing the freedom of fiction, Irving is able to "rearrange things" in such a way that he can bare his soul without fear of reproach.
Edgar Freemantle, the protagonist of Duma Key, is injured on the job and suffers a horrific loss of memory
and an arm
Edgar wonders, "How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends."
Have you ever wondered this? Like waves washing over scroll in the sand, our memory is fading. (I could go on about this topic and, conversely, tell about the mysterious way some older people, just before death, can recite poems from their childhood and tell you what color their first teddy bear was). How much of our memories are not memories at all but things that were told to us? Is it important? Maybe we are all storytellers, desperately grasping out for a warm hand in the dark, wanting to find the truth in our stories while lying "with every breath we draw."
In the throes of death, Hamlet pleads with his best friend, "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world, draw thy breath in pain to tell my story."
The desire for validation (like the desire to be loved) is universal. Maybe that is the greatest use for memory, to keep our stories alive. Will you "remember to remember"?
