![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() As might be implied by its name, what this involves is the mental construction of a memory “palace” that you can picture vividly and in detail in your head, with different routes through it and many different rooms. So in order to distract himself, since he is, understandably, unable to sleep at night, he tries out the “memory palace” mental exercise from The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. The least uncomfortable position at the particular moment he goes to bed is the best he can hope for. But his problem is the nighttime- when he is put in his bed in one position that he can’t move from the entire night- not even a minor adjustment. During his daylight hours, he generally has someone to talk to, to dictate things to, he can be moved about more frequently, etc. In the first essay of this collection, he matter-of-factly details what he goes through every day. Tony Judt died last year of ALS, a degenerative disease that left him increasingly immobile- first just in fingers and toes, then entire arms and legs until he could not move at all. It’s not quite on the level of Memories of my Melancholy Whores, which I couldn’t even bear to finish, or quite the terror that 1984 was, and doesn’t have the anguish of End of the Affair. ![]() This has to be one of the sadder books I’ve read. ![]()
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