Memento Mori
Read "Memento Mori" by Johnathan Nolan today, and I have to say that one hardly comes across stories such beautifully knit. In the first read you fail to get the purpose of the story and feel that it has been written just because the writer wanted to write something on reverse amnesia. But then as one goes over it again and again it turns out to be a beautiful story of Earl, a 10 minute man, who has short term memory losses, i.e. he fails to remember anything that has happened in the last ten minutes (like he would talk to you and ask you name and everything and when he would see you the next time, say around 5 minutes later, he would have forgotten that he ever had a conversation with you) and has the last memory of his wife being murdered.
This story is the description of his quest to get to his wife's murderer, despite of his inability to remember anything recent. Just think how difficult it becomes to find a man in this world when you cant remember things like his name, his face, why do you need him, why are you out of your house, did you brush your teeth today...
But then, it is Earl's commitment that changes everything. He figures out a way to remember things, he chalks out a plan, he keeps motivating himself, redeems his self esteem (he used to think that he was as good as dead, living his 10 minute life, iteratively, recursively, over and over again.. he was as good as a vegetable), gains confidence (from a self acclaimed "Vegetable", he transforms to the most perfect human being that can ever exist) and in the end, even though the writer leaves the story blurry, one tends to feel that the guy (Earl) has succeeded in his mission.
Its not just the plot that scores with any reader, it is the philosphy of "time", "memory", "death" and "actions" that is psuedo-orgasmic for any regular and accomplished reader.
I would like to quote the writer on
1. Life and Death:
Eveybody is waiting for the end to come, but what if it is already passed us by? What if the final joke of Judgement Day was that it had already come and gone and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test, just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after the Gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future.
2. Time:
It's not so much that you've lost your faith in time as that time has lost its faith in you. And who needs it, anyway? Who wants to be one of those saps living in the safety of the future, in the safety of the moment after the moment in which they felt something powerful? Living in the next moment, in which they feel nothing. Crawling down the hands of the clock, away from the people who did unspeakable things to them. Believing the lie that time will heal all wounds—which is just a nice way of saying that time deadens us.
But you're different. You're more perfect. Time is three things for most people, but for you, for us, just one. A singularity. One moment. This moment. Like you're the center of the clock, the axis on which the hands turn. Time moves about you but never moves you. It has lost its ability to affect you. What is it they say? That time is theft? But not for you. Close your eyes and you can start all over again. Conjure up that necessary emotion, fresh as roses.
Time is an absurdity. An abstraction. The only thing that matters is this moment. This moment a million times over. You have to trust me. If this moment is repeated enough, if you keep trying—and you have to keep trying—eventually you will come across the next item on your list.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
This is the Carpe Diem philosphy, in contrast with Christian focus of memento mori on futility of earthly life.
Memento Mori = remember that you are mortal
GO READ THE STORY!
We might, after all, sometime, need to achieve an aim while managing our handicaps. This can be a lesson!
Disclaimer: This is enitirely my point of view, and with the story being written so enigmatically, it is easy to contradict with this and have separate point of views. I respect that. And I do agree that this is one of the worst book reviews you can ever get.
This story is the description of his quest to get to his wife's murderer, despite of his inability to remember anything recent. Just think how difficult it becomes to find a man in this world when you cant remember things like his name, his face, why do you need him, why are you out of your house, did you brush your teeth today...
But then, it is Earl's commitment that changes everything. He figures out a way to remember things, he chalks out a plan, he keeps motivating himself, redeems his self esteem (he used to think that he was as good as dead, living his 10 minute life, iteratively, recursively, over and over again.. he was as good as a vegetable), gains confidence (from a self acclaimed "Vegetable", he transforms to the most perfect human being that can ever exist) and in the end, even though the writer leaves the story blurry, one tends to feel that the guy (Earl) has succeeded in his mission.
Its not just the plot that scores with any reader, it is the philosphy of "time", "memory", "death" and "actions" that is psuedo-orgasmic for any regular and accomplished reader.
I would like to quote the writer on
1. Life and Death:
Eveybody is waiting for the end to come, but what if it is already passed us by? What if the final joke of Judgement Day was that it had already come and gone and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test, just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after the Gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future.
2. Time:
It's not so much that you've lost your faith in time as that time has lost its faith in you. And who needs it, anyway? Who wants to be one of those saps living in the safety of the future, in the safety of the moment after the moment in which they felt something powerful? Living in the next moment, in which they feel nothing. Crawling down the hands of the clock, away from the people who did unspeakable things to them. Believing the lie that time will heal all wounds—which is just a nice way of saying that time deadens us.
But you're different. You're more perfect. Time is three things for most people, but for you, for us, just one. A singularity. One moment. This moment. Like you're the center of the clock, the axis on which the hands turn. Time moves about you but never moves you. It has lost its ability to affect you. What is it they say? That time is theft? But not for you. Close your eyes and you can start all over again. Conjure up that necessary emotion, fresh as roses.
Time is an absurdity. An abstraction. The only thing that matters is this moment. This moment a million times over. You have to trust me. If this moment is repeated enough, if you keep trying—and you have to keep trying—eventually you will come across the next item on your list.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
This is the Carpe Diem philosphy, in contrast with Christian focus of memento mori on futility of earthly life.
Memento Mori = remember that you are mortal
GO READ THE STORY!
We might, after all, sometime, need to achieve an aim while managing our handicaps. This can be a lesson!
Disclaimer: This is enitirely my point of view, and with the story being written so enigmatically, it is easy to contradict with this and have separate point of views. I respect that. And I do agree that this is one of the worst book reviews you can ever get.
posted by Prashant Gautam at 7:14 PM
1 Comments:
Good post. I liked the time stuff. I haven't read the book but will read it now that I have read the two descriptions. Yeah ony this momnet exists if you talk about living life but the practical stuff that is out THERE demands a bit of look to future. But I certainly agrre, it's no use living IN the future.
Past is dead,
future is not yet.
All there is, is today.
So long,
wisemoron
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