Memories

In my last post, oh so long ago, I wrote about England - where I was making memories, to sound cheesy - and Peter Nadas - whose novel was about memories.

Returning to real life in Los Angeles meant that it was difficult to get through the last 200 pages, much harder than it was on an airplane. And because A Book of Memories is so disjointed, reading catch as catch can just made it even more confusing. But I finally succeeded. (The "I'm not going to sleep until it's finished" proclamation helped.)

What struck me about the three narrators is how well (and yet how poorly) they read other people. How everyday occurrences were charged with meaning. How openly they stated their flaws, and yet so often told something less than the truth. It's the kind of book that seems designed to come from a place like Communist Hungary, with a confused and complicated history, and where people were never quite in charge of their own destiny.

Some passages, beginning with a evocative depiction of falling in love:

We told each other stories, and even that would not be an accurate description of the feverish urging to relate and the eager curiosity to listen to each other's words with which we tried to complement the contact of our bodies, our constant physical presence in each other

and more:

Lovers walk around wearing each other's body, and they wear and radiate into the world their common physicality.