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. publication in recent years of the mirably the unique voice of this Mike Berners-Lee, director of a where Koch was born, and from ...... Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s pre- long-time CBC reporter, produc- British climate-change consulting which he and his family fled after SOLAR viously uncollected poems and er, host and all-around gadfly. In company, offers a number of Hitler’s rise. This novel, the third By Ian McEwan, Vintage Canada, drafts, and of her letters to fellow his introduction to the book – shockers in this combination in a trilogy, is set during the Wei- 330 pages, $21 poet Robert Lowell. This year has published in the fall but deserv- consumer shopping guide and mar year of 1927 in a Germany seen new editions of her collect- ing renewed attention now – Pe- popular science manual. For in- that, just eight years after the In what is being called McEwan’s ed poems and prose; now we ter C. Newman calls Zolf stance, plastic bags (for which slaughterhouse of the First World best novel ever – and that’s saying have 40 years of her correspon- “Canada’s most compelling Court many Canadians are now War, is buoyant, prosperous and something – misanthropic wom- dence with that most exacting Jester,” rightly claiming the charged a nickel a pop) have half culturally vigorous. But the 1929 anizer Michael Beard is appointed and, apparently, at times exas- Shakespearean sense of the most the carbon footprint of paper economic collapse would change the head of the British National perating weekly, The New Yorker. astute observer at court, the bags, the lowest measurable im- that, followed by the brutal Third Centre for Renewable Energy. The This collection comprises hun- skeptic who speaks truth to pow- pact of any of the many items Reich. Koch makes clever use of a fun truly begins when Beard is in- dreds of letters, 1934-1979, be- er. True, but a great deal of this Berners-Lee discusses. It’s also multi-format technique to propel vited to a retreat near the North tween Bishop and her editors, memoir’s pleasure resides in its clear that we need to modify our the engaging narrative, including Pole for artists and scientists to most notably the intelligent, account of Zolf’s Winnipeg desire for tasteless, non-seasonal fictional newspaper clippings, di- see global warming close-up. sympathetic Katharine White. It youth, a North End Jewish youth, fare; imported strawberries, for aries and an operetta about Hit- ...... offers a glimpse into Bishop’s life at that. There are moving ac- instance, have a footprint more ler’s failed putsch of 1923. The IN THE FABLED EAST (she lived in Brazil for much of counts of a now forever-altered than 10 times that of the tasty lo- novel follows a triangle of char- By Adam Lewis Schroeder, Douglas this period), writing process and neighbourhood, of the felt power cal version. Biggest villains: chil- acters: musician Hanni, her paci- & McIntyre, 375 pages, $19.95 relationship with her editors, as of socialism, of casual anti-Semi- dren, swimming pools, fist lawyer husband Hermann well as a look into the internal tism. Funny anecdotes abound, deforestation and universities. As and film historian Erwin, their In 1936, Pierre Lazarie, an aca- workings of that fabled publica- including one about a young for bananas, they’re the most in- story discovered in diaries found demic and bureaucrat for the tion in which so many of her Zolf’s encounter with a very prof- nocent of foods: They don’t use by a Canadian banker in Frank- French colonial government, is poems were published. As with ane Samuel Bronfman at a me- greenhouses, keep well, are furt some 80 years on. hired by a young man to find his the best correspondence, it is like morial service for a macher (big transported by boat (not plane) mother, the consumptive Parisian eavesdropping on a lively conver- shot) at his socialist Yiddish and use no wasteful packaging. Adélie Tremier, who in 1909 dis- sation already in progress. school. Highly entertaining; a appeared into the jungles of Indo- fine memento of a vivid life. china and Laos seeking a spring of immortality.