memory 15
Holden Caulfield and the Ducks of Central Park
Holden Caulfield, the 16-year-old “hero” of The Catcher in the Rye, goes to the park mentally or physically on seven separate occasions in the course of the relatively short novel.
Erich Maria Remarque’s Grief
He decides to write about his experience. Two earlier novels were dismal affairs. But now in 1927, over the course of a few months, he fills each page with pain…
The Maps of Our Lives Point Homeward
Older and wiser, I have long learned that for all the times I wanted to visit far-away places, there is no place like home.
Scenes From a Stolen Childhood: A Review of Kinderszenen
Only in Israel, I think in retrospect, would twelve-year-olds be this intimately familiar with the history of the Holocaust, the violence and suffering of oppression in the Warsaw Ghetto, and…
The Hidden Sorrow of Mother’s Day
Our mothers and our children will always be part of our lives, in life and death. Surprisingly, grief does not dominate our existence, it informs it.
Repairing the Rents of History
The real challenge is to make the wisdom of the past live in the present. Such work is analogous to sprouting a seed, playing a song, cooking and enjoying a…
Scenes of Arrival, Stories of Home
Here are three novels about three places in the world. Each conveys not just a perfunctory setting but a web of topography, livelihoods, pastimes, and lore. And in each the…
In Our Memory Lock’d: Memorial Day and the Need to Remember
One of the arts of statesmanship is the use of language, of rhetoric, to reshape the architecture of people’s souls and orient them towards political truths.
The Uses of Nostalgia
Nostalgia's got a bad rap, but, in addition to being nearly inescapable, it has indispensable benefits, provided it’s kept within reasonable limits.
October, Momma, and Memory
It is a reminder that our own personal winter is coming. When you are daily reminded of your own bones by pains in your joints, seeing a skeleton dangling from…
A Product of Speed
Nostalgia is, therefore, an index of alienation, communal decrepitude, and, at high levels, cultural patricide.
Against Pessimism
Alexandria, VA My last post has led some to conclude that I am a pessimist. Even Ross Douthat, among the most perceptive commentators in print and on internet, suggested that…
The Final Word On Cell Phones
Rock Island, IL In the early days of FPR, and then again more recently, I was impertinent enough to write disparaging remarks about cell phones, which as everyone knows are…
Two Degrees of Separation
Henry County, Kentucky. Last week here we buried our 97-year-old neighbor, a woman named Thelma Chilton Moody Clark. Until this spring she had never been sick, “and I don't know…
The Long Run
Alexandria, VA It has become a commonplace to observe that the thought of John Maynard Keynes is back in fashion. Keynes argued strenuously on behalf of government spending - including…