Tony! I’ve read The Memory Police. What a great concept. Would love to hear what you think when you’re done. Can’t say any more do fear of spoiling it.
My dad used to be able to recite stories and poetry he memorized as a child. When I expressed amazement over that, and told him how Japanese kids rote-memorized literary passages, he said that that's how it used to be in the US too, but the teaching community (actually, he used more choice words 😅) had changed all that in favor of “more modern” teaching methods in the 1950s and 60s, and that by the time my cohort got to that stage of our education, memorizing literature was no longer practiced.
A great read. I know someone who uses the memory palace technique for remembering names when he meets people. He's in marketing, so it's hugely valuable.
Coincidentally, I'm a few pages into The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder).
So true! "Memory Palace." But you caught my attention immediately with the reference to fireflies. A favorite image since childhood. A sprinkling of fireflies were also pictured in my favorite childhood book of cat stories. (And I still have it!). Two kinds of genius to this collection: each story is different in structure -- the fireflies are a vignette rather than a story --and the illustrations are so beautifully detailed. The details become the strokes for the story, so that the story can be read over and over with something else to find. And this endless matching of visual detail with language phrases becomes a vivid palace! Lol! (Can you tell I still adore this book? lol!). Anyway, I was saddened to see the trend in children's literature of illustration becoming streamlined ("modern"). Allows for about one room, and one room is not a palace -- it's a dull studio apartment! . . . Unless the walls are papered in colorful kanji !!! (Sorry for the long comment; fireflies get me started. . . ).
Tony! I’ve read The Memory Police. What a great concept. Would love to hear what you think when you’re done. Can’t say any more do fear of spoiling it.
My dad used to be able to recite stories and poetry he memorized as a child. When I expressed amazement over that, and told him how Japanese kids rote-memorized literary passages, he said that that's how it used to be in the US too, but the teaching community (actually, he used more choice words 😅) had changed all that in favor of “more modern” teaching methods in the 1950s and 60s, and that by the time my cohort got to that stage of our education, memorizing literature was no longer practiced.
A great read. I know someone who uses the memory palace technique for remembering names when he meets people. He's in marketing, so it's hugely valuable.
Coincidentally, I'm a few pages into The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder).
So true! "Memory Palace." But you caught my attention immediately with the reference to fireflies. A favorite image since childhood. A sprinkling of fireflies were also pictured in my favorite childhood book of cat stories. (And I still have it!). Two kinds of genius to this collection: each story is different in structure -- the fireflies are a vignette rather than a story --and the illustrations are so beautifully detailed. The details become the strokes for the story, so that the story can be read over and over with something else to find. And this endless matching of visual detail with language phrases becomes a vivid palace! Lol! (Can you tell I still adore this book? lol!). Anyway, I was saddened to see the trend in children's literature of illustration becoming streamlined ("modern"). Allows for about one room, and one room is not a palace -- it's a dull studio apartment! . . . Unless the walls are papered in colorful kanji !!! (Sorry for the long comment; fireflies get me started. . . ).