Author

Publication

2019-06-18 - Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Language

English

Word Count

96,000 words, Guess

Page Count

384 pages

Physical Format

Hardcover

Identifiers

  • ISBN-100374237212
  • ISBN-139780374237219
  • Library of Congress Control Number2018050163
  • OCLC Control Number1053487922
  • Better World Books9780374237219
and 2 more

Classifications

  • LCCB378.F7H93 2019
  • LCCBF378.F7 H93 2019

Description

"We live in a culture that prizes memory--how much we can store, the quality of what's preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear--be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness--but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth? Lewis Hyde's A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography, and social criticism by the author of the classics The Gift and Trickster Makes This World. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a creative and political force. It also turns inward, using the author's own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil. Drawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, A Primer for Forgetting is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced."--Page [2] of cover.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the PastHardcoverFarrar, Straus and Giroux2019-06-18

Reader Reviews

No reviews yet for this book.

Be the first to share your thoughts!