Meadowdale H.S. graduation 2012
Middletown H.S. graduation 2012
Dunbar H.S. graduation 2012
Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2010 > June > 05
Saturday, June 5, 2010
What do you remember?
I’m reading Hitch-22, the new memoir by Christopher Hitchens. I’m about 75% finished with the book.
Hitchens is a Brit who became a US citizen a few years ago. He’s a bit of a political gadfly. His viewpoints are often unpredictable. This memoir is quite entertaining.
He makes some amazing admissions. For example, Hitchens reveals that he is essentially bisexual but that he has been primarily heterosexual since he has gotten older and lost his good looks to the point that men are not attracted to him in the way they might once have been.
While he makes these candid admissions he also makes some stunning omissions as well. I just read the section where he describes how he became a US citizen in 2006. The ceremony was arranged by his pal, the head of the Dept. of Homeland Security. In passing Hitchens mentions the name of his wife. This was the first indication that the reader has that he is even married. There’s been no courtship. No wedding described. Apparently, there are children, too! Bizarre. Perhaps he is telling his story out of sequence and he’ll get to the part about his wife, later?
This got me thinking. I imagine that you could have 100 people experience the same incident together and every single person would remember different aspects of the thing that occurred.
What is the nature of memory? How do we select our memories? This Hitchens memoir reminded me of a memory. Some years ago my neighbor died. She was an elderly widow. She and her late husband had built their house in the mid 1950’s. It was filled with all the things they had accumulated over a half century.
Her only survivor was an elderly sister who lived far away. Her sister was in her mid eighties and handling the estate was quite complicated. We were helping her out and after some discussion we offered to buy the house and whatever contents the sister decided to leave there.
So we did. The house was filled with our neighbor’s furniture, clothing, books, household supplies, you name it. It was a fascinating project to go through all this stuff.
Our neighbor had been a meticulous person. Almost everything in the house had some sort of a record that went along with it. In her closets all her dresses had index cards which enumerated every date when a particular outfit had been worn, the occasion, the people involved, etc.
There were cards in every book that provided dates the books were read, re-read, and any thoughts she had about the books. There was also extensive marginalia in every book. She had an incredible library. Things like first editions of Mark Twain.
There were household products in bright containers. Many were obsolete brands. It seemed that they had rarely discarded anything.
The most fascinating reading turned out to be her daily diary, a memoir of sorts. In it she recorded all the mundane details of her daily existence. When she awakened. What time she opened the drapes. What sorts of birds had come to her feeders. Which annoying neighbor cats (mine) were lurking about.
She described every meal she ate in detail and when she consumed the leftovers that was also noted. Her correspondence. Her phone calls. Her visitors. All there. Dates. Times.
What do we remember? And why? What is important to recall?
Was my neighbor an excessive diarist? Or did this attention to detail allow her to keep her mind sharp? To stay moored to daily life? She was elderly. Living alone. Afraid.
I had not thought about her until I began reading the Hitchens book.
Then I remembered….
Vick Mickunas
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