The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 December 2009
by Lydia Davis
Memory is a malleable concept. What we recall of any significant event or relationship in our lives shifts and changes tone and color as time grows. Memories shift with our attitudes. How often does it happen that a memory is altered when we hear about someone else's take on what happened? How we know people might suddenly change when we learn something new, or suddenly recall something we had thought long forgotten. It can be a very powerful experience. We tell stories of the past, too, of course, but if we were to truly examine the motivations and subtleties of almost any memory, we would find layers of meaning, shifting perspective and misinterpretations. A large part of Marcel Proust's work is about this. Which is appropriate, as this author has translated some of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. This novel is narrated by a woman in her late thirties who has, perhaps years before, ended a short relationship with a man much younger than she. In an intense prose, she describes the difficulties of the affair, the puzzling and uncomfortable interactions that eventually led to the end of the relationship. And when that relationship finally ends, she decides to write a novel about it, the novel we are reading. The language here is a key element to the novel. Our protagonist and the man remain unnamed. They live in an unnamed seaside college town (which seems to be a lot like Santa Cruz or Santa Barbara, California). The duration of the relationship is not specifically laid out, but spans a few months. The novel opens with the man's last appearance in the woman's life. She goes on to reflect on their meeting, some of the events of their relationship, and the turbulent end, which includes her obsessing over his movements after he has gone. She tries to figure out what to include in her novel, if the story is complete enough for a book, and what facts to include or delete in her memory. It is hard to describe what might sound like a simple story. Our narrator contemplates the shifting tone of her memories. The time line is uncertain, events overlap or are interchangable. Something that she thought happened once might have happened at another time. Details are vague, and she ponders what details to remember, which ones are not worth remembering, and which have been forgotten altogether. All of this is steeped in the uncertainty of her perspective, as well. What she interpreted as one form of behavior may have in fact been something else entirely. The book is fairly dense with these ruminations. Depending on the patience of the reader, this could seem tedious and unworthy of his attention, or an involved and compelling meditation on the vagaries of memory, love and happiness. Either way, the book is an intricate, almost Proustian, consideration of the joys and pitfalls of memory and writing.
(Davis was awarded the 2013 Man Booker International Prize.)
See Also: [The Spirit of Mediterranean Places by Michel Butor, translated by Lydia Davis]