It is uncanny when I turned to a page randomly, the words which happened to cross my mind somehow sprang from an article or a fiction I happened to be reading . They are sheer coincidences but they reinforce the fact that what is on my mind is shared by many other individuals. There were times when I was internalizing a thought, I came across books which were about the very same theme I happened to be reflecting on . Perhaps it is law of attraction, you get what you are looking for. Perhaps we read what we think.
La Saone- Gray |
I have been thinking quite
a bit about how we can choose to be elusive and deluded about our situations
and what we remember about the past might have been inaccurate. We have a
tendency to reconstruct our memory and amend what we remember about the past.
Here is a prime example: I had never thought of myself as a strict mother but
apparently there was this incident my twenty year old remembered. She was not allowed to go on a school trip during primary school because she did not do well in some school test. I
subsequently jogged my memory and vaguely recalled that there was one school
trip where we had paid up and subsequently she had to tell the teacher that she would not be
going for some reasons or other. I think it was probably one of the joint
decisions I had to make with my significant other. On my part, I was relieved
that she was not going as I had a tendency to become worrisome about my daughters’ travelling on those buses which the school usually chartered for
such trips. I worry about errant and reckless drivers and unhygienic food.
In one Proust
questionnaire published in Vanity Fair September 2006 issue, Howard Schultz was
asked this : “What is your most
treasured possession?” Mr
Schultz’s answer was : “ My
memories.” Brilliant answer and
how true. But what if our memories are faulty? I believe we all have selective
memory, some more selective than others.
Two weekends ago, I
was in the company of some of the friends’ from the past. We
gathered at a post wedding reception held by one of our school friends whose
son recently got married. The wedding took place in San Francisco in May and
the post wedding party was held a few months later in the groom’s hometown in
Malaysia. It was an interesting full weekend catching up with a few school
friends. I am not one who becomes nostalgic and carry the notion that school
days were wonderful. I think that was such an awkward age. Nonetheless we
behaved as if time had not passed despite whatever we had gone through and experienced during all those years as grown ups.
When I returned to my
present life, I read "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes, winner of the
2011 Man Booker Prize. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist Tony
Websters narrates, “……but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as
what you have witnessed.” I can
relate to the sentiment after a weekend away with some nostalgic moments spent
with some school friends. It is definitely a novel for grown-ups, superb prose, full of wit and complex undertones.
"The Sense of an Ending" explores memory and the story was told through the apparently insignificant
life of a sixty year old man, Tony Webster whose life was basically average by
his own terms. The calm of his life became unsettled when he received a letter
from a solicitor who informed him that he had been left a small legacy by a
woman he barely knew and the legacy included a diary kept by his good friend
from school, Adrian Finn some four decades ago. Once in history class, the school master asked the students for a
definition of history. Adrian
Finn’s answer was “ History is that certainty produced at the point where the
imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation."
Apparently the quote was from a
fictitious French author whom Finn had made up. Tony Webster’s answer then was
“ History is the lies of the victors”. Later on in life, he realized that
history is the memories of the survivors , most of whom are neither victorious
nor defeated.
Tony Webster narrates “ But time….how time first
grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were
only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being
cowardly”. How true. So often we
go through life playing safe by avoiding hurt, loss and the unbeaten path in the name of survival and self preservation. Webster had
to confront the core of his character when he examined some letters he had
written in his fits of spite. The book is exquisitely written and makes an
insightful read.
Another insightful and brilliant novel I had
recently read was “ A visit from
the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan. It is about passing of our youth, very
cleverly written. The writer has employed a satirical approach to lives of the
characters in the fiction.
Not that I lament about
the passing of youth and fragilities of life, I particularly enjoy reading
novels which have been written on that premise. I am addicted to buying books
as every book is a hopeful purchase. These days I find myself devouring the
pages too quickly to accord the author justice. While I anticipate the joy and look forward to the
day when I can take my time to savour each and every phrase and passage lucidly
put together by these writers, I suspect I may still not have enough time in the world to catch up with all the books I want to read. Meanwhile juggling time between my work, chores, tennis , yoga, social outings, chats, movies,
books and blogging keep my
adrenalin pumping.
Paris |
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