Tag Archives: memory

Week 12 – Agualusa, “The Society of Reluctant Dreamers”

I liked this book, the intertwining storylines of politics, romance, and dreams made it an interesting read. While the dreaming and romantic narratives provided interesting psychological thought and emotional elements, the commentary on the political tension was my favorite element of this book.

I enjoyed that the dream narrative was not imposed upon by Freud’s psychoanalysis of dreams; it was refreshing to read about dreams without the narrative of the subconscious as the dominating discourse on the purpose of dreams. I liked the story of dreams as purposeful and symbolic; “Unfortunately, people have stopped seeing the value of dreams. We need to restore dreams to their practical vocation”, “dreams relate to our own personal emotional experience” (pg 109). It was insightful to read and made me consider the dream world as a separate reality that has ambiguous ties with our real lives. The way that Hossi appears in strangers’ dreams wearing a purple coat suggests that dreams are not just a neurological process, but a world that we all step into. 

The comments made about the dictatorship and conflict in Angola were important considerations about the nature of violence and conflict in a society. These lines, “The dictatorship is growing in the shade of your silent complicity” (pg 116), “Here in Angola the honest people are in prison, and the crooks are in charge” (pg 141), “This country is divided into people who can insist on their rights and those who don’t have rights at all” (pg 144) reflect the powerful process of oppression and how inequality persists when the powerful groups in society maintain dominance and silence those who fight it. For example, Daniel’s daughter Karinguiri demonstrates the way that the government silences and punishes people who challenge the system in place. The narrator emphasizes pacifism, “All wars imprison us. That thing you call a war of liberation was the origin of the civil war” (pg 31) and “What you get through violence remains poisoned by violence” (pg 32). By condoning the violence in Angola, the story seems to work as a critique of the tense social conditions in the country after the liberation from Portuguese control. Furthermore, the line, ““Fucking whites” Gato complained. “They steal from us for five hundred years and even after they’ve fucked off, driven out by gun and blow, they’re still trying to kill us”” (pg 28) also importantly emphasizes the harmful and lasting impact of colonialism, even once it is ‘gone’, violence and conflict continues to persist. 

“I tried explaining to him that we mustn’t confuse the government with the country. Criticizing mistakes made by the government wasn’t the same as insulting Angola and Angolans. On the contrary, I criticized the government’s errors because I dreamed of a better country” (pg 6). Daniel is fired as a journalist because he wants to criticize the government and the structural violence that oppresses Angolans. In this way, do you think the incorporation of dreams into this story offers an opportunity for censorship, or does it maybe offer a suggestion of utopia and dreaming of a better reality? How do you view these different storylines working together?

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Week 8 – Perec, “W or The Memory of Childhood”

If I were to pick a word that reflects this story, I would choose “remember”. The narrator uses the word remember consistently throughout this book to introduce his certainty about a specific memory, for example: “I have a vague memory” “I don’t have a precise memory” “I do not remember” “I can hardly remember”, all of which are evident on more than one occasion. There is so much fragility and uncertainty tied to the memories he discusses, while some also holding a clear sense of familiarity. His memory is clearly a source of frustration for him as he has unreliable and fragmented memories of his family or his childhood forcing him to imagine the gaps; “whom I imagine, rather than remember” (pg 94). I get the sense that the narrator has a weak sense of identity and this lack of memory for the significant events in his life causes him stress. He has no problem recounting the “statistical details” (pg 41) of his parents, these are the facts that he can count on. But, his lack of emotional attachments to memories with his parents was sad, and unfortunately, this was likely a common reality of children growing up during the war as their important developmental and familial relationships were disrupted by violence and displacement. 

The context of Nazi occupation and the second world war was important to consider as the narrator worked through his variable memories. He clearly experienced many tragic and traumatic experiences at a young age that he has now repressed, perhaps as a coping mechanism, relying on photographs, “statistical details”, and remnants of memories to form an understanding of his childhood. Given the volatility of the time, the censorship of names and true identities also adds to this confusion and uncertainty. For example, he mentions, “I could have been told that my father’s name was Andre, my mother’s Cecile and that we came from Brittany” (pg 35) reflects the way that the censorship of identity during that time would have been, and clearly was, confusing for a child. We can understand why the narrator’s blank memory is the result of trauma and while this is clearly a source of frustration for him, perhaps ignorance, in this case, is bliss? This is my question this week: Do you think that the narrator’s gaps in memory work as a form of protection and is a good thing or do you think that despite how tragic and traumatic his memories were that knowing is better than always wondering? 

Going back to our first lecture in which we discussed the purpose and meanings we attach to reading, I thought the narrator’s descriptions of books as a ‘material for rumination and of a kind of certainty’ (page 142) were interesting. The narrator expresses his love for reading coming from the certainty and reliability that books offer; unlike his memory that is fragmented and abstract. He describes the comfort he finds in rereading books, knowing that the book is ‘telling a story you could follow’ (pg 142), unlike his childhood that offers no linearity or logical order of events. This perspective of reading as a form of escape and comfort is similar to the meanings that Proust attached to reading. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to read Perec’s thoughts about reading, providing a sense of comfort through the reliability of the words. However, this book offers no reliability or certainty, providing us with no conclusive account of his childhood, reflective of postmodernist literature as variable.

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