Memory: Lapham's Quarterly XIII-1

 Lapham’s Quarterly XIII-1: Memory (2020) Another wonderfully wide-ranging collection of snippets, pictures, and essays. Most of it is memoir and reminiscence, usually accompanied by musings on the nature and power of memory. The common-sense but mistaken concept of memory as some kind of record that can be played back dominates these musings. We now know that remembering reconstructs the memory, often so vividly that only careful recording of different instances of the same memory will convince one that they were mistaken.
     A secondary thread is strung on the assumption that a good memory betokens intelligence and wisdom. That makes about as much sense as assuming that good spelling betokens writing talent.
     So what charmed me most were the memoirs, and the attempts by the writers to make sense of their lives by telling their stories. ****