ETp73_pp01_21_ETp50_pp1-21 09/02/2011 17:10 Page 18 Over the wall ... Alan Maley examines the wonders of memory and the terrors of forgetting.

emory, along with its twin, of total recall. We are treated to an Byatt. Part I comprises nine, mostly consciousness, is one of the endless succession of relatives, specially-commissioned pieces, ranging ‘hard’ problems of the governesses, tutors, houses, country from literature through science and Mcognitive sciences, according estates, landscapes, objects, events and evolution to a history of memory studies. to Susan Blackmore. And forgetting, along sense impressions recounted in relentless The most interesting of these are Frank with obesity, is one of the epidemics detail. It is reminiscent of Funes, the Kermode’s ‘Palaces of memory’, Ulric facing all so-called ‘developed’ societies. Memorious in Jorge Luis Borges’ story – Neisser on the unreliability of memory So there are plenty of reasons why we a man fated to recall everything he has and Richard Holmes’ ‘A meander through might be interested in how things enter ever seen, and unable ever to forget it. Or memory and forgetting’. Unfortunately, and leave our memories. There are, of of ‘S’, the subject of Alexander Luria’s this section is marred by a couple of self- course, many earlier, classic studies of classic, The Mind of a Mnemonist. consciously pretentious pieces, which memory. Sir Frederic Bartlett’s Nabokov’s prose is like an Aladdin’s cave, contribute nothing of value. Remembering: A Study in Experimental stuffed with jewels of sensory impressions Part II is both more varied and more Psychology, which showed how schemata (he is a synaesthete, which may help to interesting, in my view – an anthology are built up and how we actively explain the vividness of his visual, with sections on Memory and Childhood; construct (and distort) memories, remains auditory, olfactory and other descriptions). The Idea of Memory (what people have a highly clear and readable study. And This avalanche of memories raises the thought it was, from Plato onwards); The Alan Baddeley’s Your Memory: A User’s question of whether these are true Art of Memory (covering aspects of Guide offers a standard and informative memories or constructed ones. (As Frank mnemonics and outstanding instances of introduction to the subject. Kermode reminds us, ‘memory invents a memorisation); Memory and Science past’.) It also prompts us to wonder (from the 17th to the 21st century); Speak, Memory whether a degree of forgetfulness or Memory and Imagination (including both selectivity might not be an advantage! literature and psychoanalysis); False Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiographical Whatever the case, Nabokov succeeds in Memories (including the obliteration of Speak, Memory covers his life in pre- resuscitating a world and a society long memory and the re-writing of history, and Soviet Russia as the privileged child of a lost, with a wealth of moving impressions the power of the media to implant member of the land-owning aristocracy of childhood and exile. memories in the public mind); and from 1900 to 1919 (Chapters 1–12), and Forgetting. This section ends with Billy his life in exile in Cambridge, Berlin, Memory: An Anthology Collins’ evocative poem Forgetfulness. Paris, etc in the 1920s and 30s (Chapters The main criticism I would make of 13–15). It is remarkable for at least two For a wide-ranging collection of writings this collection is that it has attempted too reasons. He writes brilliantly, sensitively on all aspects of memory, it would be much. The corresponding advantage, and eccentrically in an adopted language. hard to beat Memory: An Anthology, however, is that it covers virtually all

iStockphoto.com / © Steven Robertson And he appears to be cursed with the fate edited by Harriet Harvey Wood and A S aspects of memory: voluntary and

18 • Issue 73 March 2011 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com • ETp73_pp01_21_ETp50_pp1-21 09/02/2011 17:10 Page 19

involuntary, personal and public, episodic long-term strategy for coping with attempted to address different aspects of and semantic, short-term and long-term, Alzheimer’s, based on the courageous memory – episodic and semantic, short- eidetic and haptic, unreliable and self-observation of an Alzheimer’s term and long-term, etc – in a systematic manipulated, retrospective and prospective, sufferer, Morris Friedell. He suggests that way. There are also useful sections on remembering and forgetting, conscious the disease may in fact enhance our diet and exercise as necessary and unconscious, digital and human. experience of life through its creation of a complements to the memory exercises. constant present moment. He speaks of The Forgetting: ‘not … beating this disease with brain ૽ ૽ ૽ Understanding Alzheimer’s exercises, but about minimizing and slowing the cognitive loss by adapting to As human beings, we are constituted by – A Biography of a Disease it’. While this is poor consolation for our memories. As Luis Buñuel said, ‘Life This book, by David Shenk, is essential anyone suffering from the condition, in without memory is no life at all … Our reading for anyone wanting to the absence of a definitive cure it may be memory is our coherence, our reason, our understand more about what Alzheimer’s the best that can be hoped for. feeling, even our action. Without it, we are disease is, how medical science has nothing.’ As teachers of language, we are attempted to deal with it (so far, Forget to Remember concerned with a more restricted sense unsuccessfully) and what its implications of memory, yet one which is crucial to the In Forget to Remember (in the Cambridge are for those who suffer from it, for those learning of a language. The problem of Readers series) I offer a fictional account who end up caring for them, and for making memorisation enjoyable is one we which focuses on the corrosive effects of society as a whole. It is in three parts: have yet to solve adequately. The books Alzheimer’s on the fabric of family Part I Early Stage, Part II Middle Stage reviewed in this article, therefore, speak relationships. The story shows how two and Part III End Stage. These stages refer to us both as human beings and as sisters, one poor, the other well-off, deal to two different aspects of Alzheimer’s: teachers (and learners!). ETp very differently with their mother’s rapidly the slow evolution of scientific deteriorating condition. The story also understanding of it as a distinct disease shows how, even in cases where Baddeley, A Your Memory: A User’s (rather than regarding dementia as an Guide Prion 1993 dementia is well-developed, there are inevitable consequence of ageing), Bartlett, F C Remembering: A Study in also moments of lucidity, human love and together with the so-far fruitless search Experimental Psychology CUP 1932/1995 humour. Hopefully, the storyline is for a cure; and the description of the Blackmore, S Consciousness: A Very interesting enough in itself, but it could stages through which the disease passes Short Introduction OUP 2005 also spark some lively discussion about – the way ‘Alzheimer’s drifts from one Borges, J L ‘Funes, the Memorious’ in how society copes, or fails to cope, with stage to the next in a slow haze’. A Personal Anthology Picador 1968 the scourge of dementia. What emerges is a disease which is Buñuel, L My Last Breath Vintage difficult to diagnose, especially in the Classics 1994 early stages, and which has no known Buzan, T Age-Proof Your Brain cure. It is devastating for all who come As human beings, Harper/Thorsons 2007 into contact with it, especially the care we are constituted Harvey Wood, H and Byatt, A S (Eds) givers. And it is likely to become the Memory: An Anthology Chatto and Windus 2008 number one drain on public health by our memories. Luria, A R The Mind of a Mnemonist funding: as the population ages, so there Harvard University Press 1968 are larger numbers of people liable to Maley, A Forget to Remember CUP 2011 contract it. And as the condition can last for up to 20 years (compared with around Nabokov, V Speak, Memory Penguin 1998 five years for cancer), expenditure is Shenk, D The Forgetting: Understanding likely to rise even more sharply. The Age-Proof Your Brain Alzheimer’s – A Biography of a Disease stages of ‘reverse childhood’ listed on Finally, for those worried that ageing may HarperCollins 2002 pages 122–3 are terrifying, as the patient be eroding their memories, Tony Buzan Tenner, E Why Things Bite Back: The regresses inexorably back to infantile (inventor of mind-mapping) offers a Revenge of Unintended Consequences helplessness and eventual death. programme of activities designed to Vintage 1997 The author raises some interesting sharpen up both memory and creativity. questions about our Faustian bargain Like most self-help books, there is a Alan Maley has worked in with technology. Will our dependence on degree of hype which not everyone will the area of ELT for over 40 years in Yugoslavia, electronic memory further weaken our find congenial. But the main message of Ghana, Italy, France, capacity to use our own memories and the book is that our brains do not China, India, the UK, Singapore and Thailand. thus hasten the onset of dementia? Will inevitably deteriorate with age, and that Since 2003 he has been our obsession with prolonging human life, the human brain is infinitely flexible and a freelance writer and consultant. He has our pursuit of ‘the death of death’, be malleable. It is, therefore, in our interests published over 30 books self-defeating, simply creating more to look after it properly: ‘This is your and numerous articles, and was, until recently, problems in what Edward Tenner terms brain: use it or lose it’ is the message. Series Editor of the an ultimate ‘revenge effect’? Do we want The techniques are familiar enough, such Oxford Resource Books for Teachers. perfect memories and endless lives? as mnemonics, mind-mapping, Shenk has an unusual suggestion for a patterning and chunking, but he has [email protected]

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