Book Specs 📖

• Author: Ben Lerner
• Genre: Autofiction
• Pages: 130 (Hardcover)

One Sentence Synopsis🔖

Writer travels to interview mentally declining mentor in Providence during COVID; the resulting interview is constructed from memory in the absence of his phone.

Notes/Thoughts📝

• Holy frickin’ airball, I understand the hype now. I’ll need a couple of re-reads to fully process some of the memory loops the author throws into the narrative, and the ending…WOW goosebumps. Prior to purchasing the book at Ben McNally books, this was also highly recommended by the book shop manager at Flying Books (favourite bookstore!). When I found out the author was a highly acclaimed poet, I spent no more time deciding if I should purchase the book.
• This is an example of the power of brevity. In a mere 130 pages, you get a hypnotizing narrative that illuminates the validity of memory against the “black box theatre” of our smartphones. Some questions:
  • Is the recorded self, a performance, and therefore not the true representation of us? Is this a false truth?
  • What other truths are not communicated through the lens? i.e. vibrations, ultrasound etc. that surpass transcription?
  • Does memory count as a reliable transcription? or is memory flawed?
  • Is reworked memory a lie or also a part of the truth? Who determines what is “true”?
  • At what point do our dreams/memories become shared?
• This book gave me the same unease from non-fiction book, Stolen Focus x Black Mirror (Netflix series). The premise of the former examines the effect of technology on the currency of attention…strangely enough the author travelled to Provincetown where he intentionally experimented with disconnecting from the digital world. The latter is dystopian tv series exploring the ills of modern technology on human behaviour.

“Quotes”🗣

“Yes, but you are recording?…Otherwise we repeat ourselves and it grows unnatural. We will sound like bad actors. Even the transcript will show that we have rehearsed.”

“There is listening beyond the cochlear, yes? And all of this is true of time, too, not only sound. Vibrations from the past or future may also be received…”

“All light is social.”

“I sound angry but I think it is yours, the anger, reflected in me.“

“…these screens, my love, they dull our senses.”

“I wanted to preserve my connection to reality. To know that there would be a transcript, even if I never consulted it, to know that I would, for once, in regard to my father, have something objective to test my experience against. “