What do you think?
Rate this book
The Anatomy of Memory: An Anthology
Memory is astonishing and elusive--its threads intricately woven and infinitely complicated. It makes intelligible the chaos of experience; it feeds our creativity and shapes our daily judgments, our spiritual apprehensions, our desires. It is the essential element of human consciousness, the
key to our personality, and the linchpin of our sense of who we are.
In The Anatomy of Memory James McConkey has assembled a rich selection of writings that illuminate the nature of memory and the varied roles it plays in our lives. Ranging from the scientific to the humanistic--from "hardwiring" and the complex functions of the brain, to the value of memory in
human life-- The Anatomy of Memory brings us insights from some of the most revered writers and thinkers of the past and present. We read of St. Augustine's struggle in Confessions to comprehend his memory; of Jung's theory of the collective unconscious; of Lewis Thomas's understanding in The Lives
of the Cell of memory at its most basic level, that of the cell. McConkey includes the poetry of Marianne Moore and William Butler Yeats; and excerpts from works as diverse as James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory, and Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk .
Indeed, each of these writers has turned to memory to make sense of his or her own life, to understand the phenomenal world, and to discover the balance only memory can provide. Not least important are McConkey's own extensive introductions to every piece in the book--gems of insight formed by a
lifetime of reflection on writers such as Anton Chekhov, E. B. White, Marcel Proust, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Maya Angelou, William James, Norman Maclean, Eudora Welty, and many others.
James McConkey is ideally suited to illuminate the nature of memory. His fiction as well as his non-fiction is in effect a lifelong meditation on memory, on the process by which we come to deeper levels of self-understanding through periodic looks backward at the events that have shaped us, a theme
he explored most profoundly in his much-praised Court of Memory . Now, in The Anatomy of Memory, he provides a powerful assessment of the ways memory unifies disparate experiences, creates a synthesis out of chaos, and binds together a self, a family, a culture, and indeed all humanity. That
assessment is abetted by the unique structure of this anthology, its six sections building on each other, each contributing to a comprehensive understanding of memory's essential role in human life.
key to our personality, and the linchpin of our sense of who we are.
In The Anatomy of Memory James McConkey has assembled a rich selection of writings that illuminate the nature of memory and the varied roles it plays in our lives. Ranging from the scientific to the humanistic--from "hardwiring" and the complex functions of the brain, to the value of memory in
human life-- The Anatomy of Memory brings us insights from some of the most revered writers and thinkers of the past and present. We read of St. Augustine's struggle in Confessions to comprehend his memory; of Jung's theory of the collective unconscious; of Lewis Thomas's understanding in The Lives
of the Cell of memory at its most basic level, that of the cell. McConkey includes the poetry of Marianne Moore and William Butler Yeats; and excerpts from works as diverse as James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory, and Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk .
Indeed, each of these writers has turned to memory to make sense of his or her own life, to understand the phenomenal world, and to discover the balance only memory can provide. Not least important are McConkey's own extensive introductions to every piece in the book--gems of insight formed by a
lifetime of reflection on writers such as Anton Chekhov, E. B. White, Marcel Proust, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Maya Angelou, William James, Norman Maclean, Eudora Welty, and many others.
James McConkey is ideally suited to illuminate the nature of memory. His fiction as well as his non-fiction is in effect a lifelong meditation on memory, on the process by which we come to deeper levels of self-understanding through periodic looks backward at the events that have shaped us, a theme
he explored most profoundly in his much-praised Court of Memory . Now, in The Anatomy of Memory, he provides a powerful assessment of the ways memory unifies disparate experiences, creates a synthesis out of chaos, and binds together a self, a family, a culture, and indeed all humanity. That
assessment is abetted by the unique structure of this anthology, its six sections building on each other, each contributing to a comprehensive understanding of memory's essential role in human life.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published April 4, 1996
2 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 9, 2009
This anthology has given me new respect for the art of assembling an anthology, which previously had seemed to me more of an administrative task than an artistic one. But from this anthology I have learned how abysmally poorly an anthology can be put together, and thus has given me a new respect for ones that work.
There is not a weak piece in this book (how could there be, among St. Augustine, Freud, Thoreau, William James, Jung, Proust, Eudora Welty, Dostoyevsky, E B White, Primo Levi, Annie Dillard, etc.), but there are many writings related to memory only in the aspect that the author used memory to write them. Thus, in most pieces, I got no insight into how memory works, how memorists work, why and what we remember and why and what we forget, how memory evolves over time, and on an on. There was an entire section called "The Memory of Nature," and it appeared to be the editor's favorite nature essays, with absolutely no direct relation to memory other than that the writer used memory in order to write. Anything about the human brain was considered fair game in this book, whether it related to memory or not, because yes, if humans are involved, there were be some memory somewhere. The editor used this volume as an excuse to throw together anything he had ever liked; he ought not have implied it was an anthology about memory when it was just his lazy choices of favorites.
The pieces are all well written though, so it's not a waste of time to read unless, like me, you wanted to learn more about memory.
There is not a weak piece in this book (how could there be, among St. Augustine, Freud, Thoreau, William James, Jung, Proust, Eudora Welty, Dostoyevsky, E B White, Primo Levi, Annie Dillard, etc.), but there are many writings related to memory only in the aspect that the author used memory to write them. Thus, in most pieces, I got no insight into how memory works, how memorists work, why and what we remember and why and what we forget, how memory evolves over time, and on an on. There was an entire section called "The Memory of Nature," and it appeared to be the editor's favorite nature essays, with absolutely no direct relation to memory other than that the writer used memory in order to write. Anything about the human brain was considered fair game in this book, whether it related to memory or not, because yes, if humans are involved, there were be some memory somewhere. The editor used this volume as an excuse to throw together anything he had ever liked; he ought not have implied it was an anthology about memory when it was just his lazy choices of favorites.
The pieces are all well written though, so it's not a waste of time to read unless, like me, you wanted to learn more about memory.
Displaying 1 of 1 review