In the Shadow of Memory
Floyd Skloot
University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln and London, 2003
Seattle Public Library
B Sk45i 2003
In his Confessions, Augustine likened memory to a great harbor receiving "in her numberless secret, and inexpressible windings" all manner of sensory information, each bit entering by its own gate and laying up there for later retrieval. This notion of memory as a harbor also intrigued the great Irish painter Jack Yeats. "Memory Harbor, 1900" is an early masterpiece collecting images that Jack Yeats would draw upon throughout his artistic career, as though the harbor itself ... were a repository of one life's meaning (31).
"No one creates," [Jack Yeats] once said, "the artist assembles memories" (31).
Skloot contracted a virus in 1993 that ate holes in his cerebral cortex, affecting the function of his short- and long-term, episodic and semantic memory. In the first part of In the Shadow of Memory, Skloot writes about his experience with being brain damaged, interlacing his mishaps and thoughts with scientific research and facts. In an unexpected turn, the second part delves into his family history - his childhood in Brooklyn and Long Island as well as his relationship with his mother and brother. Skloot concludes the book by offering reflections on his father and brother's deaths, and on his 90-year-old mother's growing dementia. Throughout the book, he ties his personal history into his current condition.
Skloot contracted a virus in 1993 that ate holes in his cerebral cortex, affecting the function of his short- and long-term, episodic and semantic memory. In the first part of In the Shadow of Memory, Skloot writes about his experience with being brain damaged, interlacing his mishaps and thoughts with scientific research and facts. In an unexpected turn, the second part delves into his family history - his childhood in Brooklyn and Long Island as well as his relationship with his mother and brother. Skloot concludes the book by offering reflections on his father and brother's deaths, and on his 90-year-old mother's growing dementia. Throughout the book, he ties his personal history into his current condition.
