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You Must Remember This Joshua Foer’S Charming Account of His Year of Training for the U.S

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You Must Remember This Joshua Foer’S Charming Account of His Year of Training for the U.S R20 • BOOKS G THE GLOBE AND MAIL • SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2011 IDEAS You must remember this Joshua Foer’s charming account of his year of training for the U.S. Memory Championship is … well, memorable ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Moonwalking with Einstein The Art and Science of Remembering Everything By Joshua Foer Penguin Press, 306 pages, $33.50 ................................................................ REVIEWED BY SIOBHAN ROBERTS ................................................................ he opening of this review re- Tquires nothing more than a representative witticism from the book it is meant to critique. Of which there are many; don’t get me wrong. Alas, no such pithy an- ecdote is leaping forth from my memory bank. But, ah yes, it’s coming back to me now … I do recall learning somewhere within the pages of Moonwalking with Einstein, the erudite and charming first book from Joshua Foer, that this lapse dangerously in the direction of a could be due to a number of sure- journalist gratuitously being a fire memory killers: too much journalist, trying to catch his sub- wine; too little sleep (for one, this ject out for some titillating copy. book kept me awake reading, but But Foer had done some serious it didn’t do my memory any fa- sleuthing. And by then I trusted vours); or, on the macro level, an his instincts, his thoughtful and atrophied memory that has be- rigorous intentions. As did Tam- come too dependent on modern met, because he didn’t take technology, external prostheses offence. He implicitly appreciated such the Internet, my smart Foer’s thesis: that while it’s inspir- phone and even the good old- ing to believe there are savants fashioned book itself. with superhuman memories, per- Dissatisfied with his own forget- haps Tammet is evidence of an ful memory – he forgets the food “even more inspiring idea: that in the oven, where he parked the we all have remarkable capacities car, and when “its” is “it’s” or asleep inside of us.” when it’s “its” – Foer enterprising- Foer himself being a prime ex- ly embarks on a stint of participa- ample. He didn’t get a most mem- tory journalism, moving into his Foer is at his amiable and amusing and irresistible best when he’s being himself in the present tense. iSTOCKPHOTO orable $1.2-million U.S. for this parents’ basement for a year book for nothing. He suffered while he trains for the 2006 U.S. THE FABULOUS FOERS Foer as a narrator is at his amia- in his mind’s eye a distinct colour considerable indignities. Obses- Memory Championship. ble and amusing and irresistible and shape, and when he multi- sively practising, for example, sit- The story follows Foer as he As much attention as young best when he’s being himself in plies, say, two three-digit num- ting on “a folding chair in the ramps up his training (coached Foer is getting for Moonwalking the present tense: taking the bers, the abstract properties of basement of my parents’ home at by a Grand Master of Memory and with Einstein, he’s a Joshua- mickey out of memory mission- the factors meld to form the prod- 6:45 a.m., wearing underpants, a Professor of Memory Expertise), come-lately to the fraternal lit- ary Tony Buzan, who founded the uct, like brushstrokes of blue and earmuffs and memory goggles, interspersed with a survey course erary party. His brothers: World Memory Championship; yellow watercolour paint blend- with a printout of eight hundred on the history of memory. He .......................................................... going for a walk around the block ing into green. random digits in my lap and an travels from the fifth century B.C., Jonathan Safran Foer with an elderly amnesiac whose Observing Tammet, Foer comes image in my mind’s eye of a lin- when the Greek poet Simonides The author of the smash de- memory goes back only as far as to suspect he is not a savant, but gerie-glad garden gnome [the invented the “memory palace” – but novel Everything is Illum- his most recent thought; and vis- rather simply a practised Mental mnemonic for the number also known as “the art of memo- inated has lately followed up iting the library with Kim Peek Athlete (as they call themselves). 562,632] suspended over my ry,” the mnemonic device Foer de- with Eating Animals, a power- (a.k.a. Rain Man), who has never Foer performs a sting operation of grandmother’s kitchen table.” ployed – through to current ful plea for a vegetarian diet forgotten anything, not one word sorts. On three separate occa- Once he turned around to find his cutting-edge science that uses and against factory farming. of the 9,000 books he has read, at sions, he asks Tammet to describe father standing there staring at functional MRIs to watch memo- He’s also married to another 10 seconds per page, with each what the number 9,412 looks like. him, perplexed and likely a bit rable brains at work. newly minted A-list novelist, eye scanning facing pages inde- Tammet gives three very different worried. But now, no doubt, rath- The survey is interesting Nicole Krauss. pendently and simultaneously. answers. On the third try, Foer er proud. Because Foer handily enough. Though Foer dwells there .......................................................... And when Foer susses out the confronts the world’s most fa- won the 2006 U.S. Memory Cham- a little long at times, and the mor- Franklin Foer autistic savant Daniel Tammet, mous savant with his theory that pionship. Sorry, forgot: Spoiler al of his story, that the role of The eldest brother is editor of the book becomes a veritable he is not truly a savant. “It was alert! memory is for better and for the influential political-cultur- page-turner. Tammet is well one of the most uncomfortable ................................................................ worse ever-changing, gets a tad al magazine The New Republic known for his synesthesia, which sentences I’d ever spoken to Siobhan Roberts is writing a biogra- repetitive (that said, dwelling and and author of How Football Ex- allows him to perform complex anyone,” Foer says. phy about Princeton mathematician repeating are good strategies for plains the World, a bestselling multiplication and division with It was uncomfortable even to John Horton Conway, whose excel- remembering, so maybe it’s all book on international soccer. no conscious mental effort. When read. It made me cringe and won- lent memory is not as excellent as he part of a subliminal motive). he thinks of a number, it takes on der whether this wasn’t heading believes it to be. QUICK READS PAPERBACKS H. J. KIRCHHOFF ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ................................................................ FOLLOWING THE LAST WILD WOLVES By Ian McAllister with Chris Dari- mont, GreyStone, 176 pages, $19.95 This book is a more textual ver- sion of McAllister’s earlier The Last Wild Wolves, both works ob- serving and commenting on the genetically distinct grey wolf pop- ulation that inhabits the northern coast of British Columbia. The coastal wolves, inhabiting one of the last areas in North America untouched by humans, have been brought to sympathetic life by McAllister, the Jane Goodall of the coastal wolves. ................................................................ CURTAINS By Tom Jokinen, Vintage Canada, A POET’S LETTERS THE BOY FROM WINNIPEG PLANETARY FOOTPRINTS GERMANY BETWEEN WARS 277 pages, $22 ............................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................... .. When the fortysomething Joki- ELIZABETH BISHOP THE DIALECTICAL DANCER HOW BAD ARE BANANAS? THE WEIMAR TRIANGLE nen became obsessed with the AND THE NEW YORKER A Simple Tale The Carbon Footprint of Everything Frankfurt 1927 modern rituals surrounding The Complete Correspondence By Larry Zolf By Mike Berners-Lee By Eric Koch death, he didn’t just wonder idly Edited by Joelle Biele Exile Editions, 335 pages, $25 GreyStone, 231 pages, $19.95 Mosaic Press, 198 pages, $20 about it. He quit his job as a CBC Farrar, Straus & Giroux, ................................................................ ................................................................ ................................................................ producer and went to work as an 421 pages, $40.50 Those mourning the death of We all know that any activity that At the age of 91, the unsinkable apprentice undertaker. What he ................................................................ Larry Zolf earlier this week may consumes fossil fuels leaves a big Eric Koch continues to turn out discovered in the process makes The Elizabeth Bishop industry well find consolation in this carbon footprint, but how about novels that take us inside the for a fascinating, gripping – and rumbles along nicely, with the memoir, which reproduces ad- those little quotidian choices. making of modern Germany, informative – story.
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