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#5 Platform: The Memory Chalet
Aug. 5th, 2011 08:09 pmA strong example of being able to do anything, if you put your mind to it, particularly if that's all you have.
Title: The Memory Chalet
Author: Tony Judt
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Public Library
Here's a question: do you give extra points to a book for the circumstances in which it was written? I feel as if any discussion of Tony Judt’s memoir, The Memory Chalet, needs to take this question into account. The author is very up-front with you about the circumstances of how he wrote the book: while he was lying incapacitated in bed each night, slowly dying of ALS, he searched through his memories of his life, and tied his memories and thoughts to particular places and objects within a Swiss chalet that he remembered quite well from a visit there with his family when he was growing up. The book, comprised of a collection of essays about his past, is essentially a volume that he put together via meditating on his life and the messages and memories he had, and then dictating it to an assistant.
Given the nature of the book and the author, this is quite a remarkable piece of work. Judt is erudite and witty, and the amount of time and introspection he has put into his short essays is evident in the book. He gets across clearly images of his childhood, stories about the London he knew, riding on buses through the town, anecdotes about austerity and its effect on his life, on changes in class via the system of bedders in Cambridge… it’s an interesting set of stories. And Judt himself seems to make for a good subject for a memoir, if just because the choices he made in life were not exactly run-of-the-mill; for example, for his midlife crisis, instead of getting a fast new car, he learns Czech.
Now, if you wanted to give the book extra points for how it was written, and the inspirational story you can take from it – a memoir written while the author slowly lost control over his body, even his breathing, but never his mind! – then I certainly couldn’t fault you for it. I do find it an admirable book, and I can’t help admiring the author, now deceased, for his efforts. It’s remarkable the book is as good as it is, really. But that said, just as a book, there are some repetitious parts, both in terms of content and phrasing; some stuff is glossed over in chapters that feels odd; to the extent that you can say there is pacing to a book that is made up of loosely connected essays, then the pacing is a bit odd, as well, although whether that was intentional or not is hard to say, considering the state of the author’s health.
There are some very good essays in here, and I do think it’s a good book overall, and a good effort… but if I gave you the book with the chapters explaining his condition removed, I don’t think it was a superlative book. However, if you want a view on postwar London, and then the changing role of the academic within society, on the effect of those growing up in the 60s on later generations, Judt has some interesting things to say, and you’ll probably enjoy it. And, yes, perhaps marvel at the human spirit, as well.
Next up: Still reading Steelhands; I think I'll probably review Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You next, though.
Title: The Memory Chalet
Author: Tony Judt
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Public Library
Here's a question: do you give extra points to a book for the circumstances in which it was written? I feel as if any discussion of Tony Judt’s memoir, The Memory Chalet, needs to take this question into account. The author is very up-front with you about the circumstances of how he wrote the book: while he was lying incapacitated in bed each night, slowly dying of ALS, he searched through his memories of his life, and tied his memories and thoughts to particular places and objects within a Swiss chalet that he remembered quite well from a visit there with his family when he was growing up. The book, comprised of a collection of essays about his past, is essentially a volume that he put together via meditating on his life and the messages and memories he had, and then dictating it to an assistant.
Given the nature of the book and the author, this is quite a remarkable piece of work. Judt is erudite and witty, and the amount of time and introspection he has put into his short essays is evident in the book. He gets across clearly images of his childhood, stories about the London he knew, riding on buses through the town, anecdotes about austerity and its effect on his life, on changes in class via the system of bedders in Cambridge… it’s an interesting set of stories. And Judt himself seems to make for a good subject for a memoir, if just because the choices he made in life were not exactly run-of-the-mill; for example, for his midlife crisis, instead of getting a fast new car, he learns Czech.
Now, if you wanted to give the book extra points for how it was written, and the inspirational story you can take from it – a memoir written while the author slowly lost control over his body, even his breathing, but never his mind! – then I certainly couldn’t fault you for it. I do find it an admirable book, and I can’t help admiring the author, now deceased, for his efforts. It’s remarkable the book is as good as it is, really. But that said, just as a book, there are some repetitious parts, both in terms of content and phrasing; some stuff is glossed over in chapters that feels odd; to the extent that you can say there is pacing to a book that is made up of loosely connected essays, then the pacing is a bit odd, as well, although whether that was intentional or not is hard to say, considering the state of the author’s health.
There are some very good essays in here, and I do think it’s a good book overall, and a good effort… but if I gave you the book with the chapters explaining his condition removed, I don’t think it was a superlative book. However, if you want a view on postwar London, and then the changing role of the academic within society, on the effect of those growing up in the 60s on later generations, Judt has some interesting things to say, and you’ll probably enjoy it. And, yes, perhaps marvel at the human spirit, as well.
Next up: Still reading Steelhands; I think I'll probably review Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You next, though.
