Hi all,
I'm an avid reader and aspiring writer, and I'm currently working on my PhD. For this project, I'm writing about memory. I have been inundated with books I've encountered on my research, and can't really think where to start with this creative reading. As such, I thought I'd ask here. I'll find new books people have loved, and if something crops up that's already on my list… well, I know which one to read first!
My project centres around a man seeking to trigger involuntary memories to understand his past. He uses food, music and place to do so. He is hoping to understand why he broke up with his first girlfriend, and try and absolve himself of guilt because she has recently passed. The main inspiration for the book was Julian Barnes' 'The Sense of an Ending'.
I'm looking for books that are literary, to some extent, and that focus on a person unearthing memories of their youth. Bonus points if the memories are involuntary (like Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time').
Thanks in advance!!
by wooperarkjb
1 Comment
These are two old classics that are adjacent to what you’re asking:
*Tristram Shandy* by Laurence Sterne first published in English in 1759. It is a comic novel in which the narrator attempts to tell the story of his life but keeps interrupting himself with recollections, digressions, and remembered anecdotes. The structure of the book imitates the way memory works, nonlinear, bouncing all over the place, hard to keep focused. Fast-forward sometimes it reads like a psychotherapy session!
*The Sorrows of Young Werther* by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe first published in English in 1779. Epistolary novel presented through the letters of the young artist Werther and through an editor who later gathers the letters into a coherent story. Again, it feels broken and episodic often like memories are. Now also from a psychological point of view this is probably one of the most famous novels ever written because as you may know, allegedly a number of young men used it as an inspiration un*alive themselves!