Another notch in the book lists

Spending copious amounts on buses and hammocks yields itself to reading books I've been wanting to read for a long time, and books that people I've met along the way have generously given me. Already, I've turned through 5 books. I'm working on 3 more right now. I only brought one book from Austin and I finished reading that sometime in Costa Rica. It was an intriguing looking paperback with an enticing title called The Story of Forgetting.

I felt that it would be a suiting read, a story about forgetting as I was leaving. Sentimental, I know, but what do you expect?
I like poetry.

The story is told through 3 separate narratives, all intertwined and unknowing; a boy, a man, and a town. My favorite of them is the narrative of Isadora; a place where nothing is ever obtained so nothing can ever be lost. Possession of any and everything. Words. People. Ideas. Objects. Perhaps all we are, are our memories. It is our experiences that craft us into the walking wonders we are. The book is entitled The Story of Forgetting but what about the things that we don't that we wish we could? We have memories for remembering, followed by a language we've created to explain what it is we can't forget. We are abstract beings in concrete bodies. If I cut my finger I will bleed like anyone else, but we feel it differently. The feeling is an abstraction to the sensation of pain itself.

The minds selection of memories is mystifying. The things we teach ourselves to remember like test dates, birthdays, and the things the mind decides to remember on its own like certain nightmares, smells, faces of ex-lovers. The narrative of Isadora is an array of mysticism and science. As I read it I couldn't help but wonder what if?. There is a part where a general hears of a town that is filled with gold- all the riches in world; everything one could ever want- but the thing about the town is that it contains no memory. Gold has no value because there is no memory of it. Gold is gold. The only value gold has is what we have asserted to it. The word gold evokes a connotation of wealth, an abstraction. If I said I have oro (the Spanish word for gold) to a person who only speaks English that would have no meaning to them. Things can be both gained and lost by the act of what one remembers and what one doesn't. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote, " Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it."

I agree.

The Story of Forgetting is not my favorite book. Probably not even top 10, but a good read. An entertaining and interesting one. I'd recommend it simply for the story of Isadora.


Next book.

The Turning by Tim Winton.

A collection of short stories that was given to me by a traveling boy from the UK. These short stories are like chocolate cake in bed, surprise birthday, first kiss, moon in the horizon, kinda good. One made me cry. Another made me ill. All of them made me thankful for the inspiration. If you find, buy it.


Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I shouldn't have to explain. It is Gabriel Garcia Marquez; the Colombian God of writers.


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Sidenote:
Since I'm churning through books quicker then bottles of beer any recommendations of books would be greatly appreciated :)


cheers!