- Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Science Fictio (Sep 21 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0380813688
- ISBN-13: 978-0380813681
- Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.4 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 113 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,247,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The awe-inspiring historical concept of the memory palace is put to grand use in Jeffrey Ford's fascinating novel Memoranda, the sequel to his World Fantasy Award-winning New York Times Notable Book, The Physiognomy.
Cley was once the greatest practitioner of the Physiognomy, a dangerous pseudoscience invented by the twisted tyrant Drachton Below. Since the fall of Below's Well-Built City, Cley has dedicated himself to healing. But when his new people fall into a deadly sleep from which he cannot wake them, he ventures to the ruins of the Well-Built City for the cure. He discovers Below is still alive--but the antidote is lost and Below is asleep, victim to the disease he created. Cley must strike a pact with Below's demon to enter Below's mind in search of the antidote's formula. But even if he survives the demon, Cley may not survive the very real dangers of Below's vast, intricate, and treacherous memory palace--or the disintegration of the dying madman's mind. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Last year, Ford's The Physiognomy won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. Here's a worthy sequel. In the first book, Physiognomist Cley helped bring about the destruction of the Well-Built City, a technological marvel where foreheads, cheekbones, chins were measured in order to determine the moral character of the populace, and where mismanaged science controlled every aspect of life. Now Cley has moved to the primitive village of Wenau, where he works as a healer. His idyllic existence is ruined when the evil Master Below, the ruler of the destroyed Well-Built City, sends a sleeping sickness that quickly spreads throughout Wenau. In order to save his friends, Cley returns to the ruined City to find BelowAand an antidote. Once there, however, he learns that Below himself has been stricken by his own poison. Below's misbegotten demon son Misrix offers to help Cley enter the sleeping Below's mind to seek out the cure. "To decipher the symbols, you need only read the Physiognomy of Father's memory," Misrix explains. Yet traveling through the subconscious of a madman may well be more dangerous than the sleeping sickness itself, for there Cley must interpret a surreal landscape of events, objects and characters, even as they distort his own thoughts. Reading Ford's vivid descriptions of Below's bizarre subconscious is like stepping into a Dal! painting. Ford's symbolic view of memory and desire is as intriguing as it is hauntingAthough the book ends with more questions than it began. Admirers of The Physiognomy will prize this book, while trusting that the next (and conclusion to the trilogy), The Beyond, will clarify Ford's views on the nature of mind and reality.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
In the years since completing a written account of the fall of the Well-Built City, which told of my personal transformation from Physiognomist to humble citizen and the inception of this once idyllic settlement of Wenau, I never again thought it would be necessary to put pen to paper, but after what has occurred in the past few weeks, I must warn my unsuspecting neighbors. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
In the years since completing a written account of the fall of the Well-Built City, which told of my personal transformation from Physiognomist to humble citizen and the inception of this once idyllic settlement of Wenau, I never again thought it would be necessary to put pen to paper, but after what has occurred in the past few weeks, I must warn my unsuspecting neighbors. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magical SurRealism,
This review is from: Memoranda (Mass Market Paperback)
Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers in fantasy-scifi who writes about ideas instead of events. If you like the pity and catharsis of authors like Hawthorne and Melville, the decadent symbolism of Poe, or the logical precision and impassive sadness of Kafka, then I highly recommend Ford as he is their contemporary successor. Those who criticize the plot and characterizations of The Physiognomy and Memoranda do so from misapprehensions regarding the appropriate style and substance of the allegorical genre of fiction which is not to be evaluated by the same criteria as the psychological realist school. Not because it is inferior, but because it is alien and has different goals.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating continuation of "The Physiognomy",
By
This review is from: Memoranda (Mass Market Paperback)
I found Ford's "The Physiognomy" to be dark, but utterly fascinating. This sequel continues the very strange tale of the main character Cley as he tries to make amends for his grotesque previous life and tries to understand life itself.He has established himself in the remote settlement of Wenau as a healer, and feels that he is finally on a good path when his evil master Drachton Below attempts to destroy Cley and the town by infecting it with a deadly sleeping sickness. Trying to return to Below to extract the cure from him, Cley learns that Below is himself infected with the same sickness and is slowly dying. The only way left to find the cure is to make a perilous journey directly into the mind of Below where he will hopefully discover the answer before Below dies taking Cley with him. As with "The Physiognomy", the writing is gripping and extraordinary. The concepts are totally new to me and add fascinating possibilities to the ongoing question of how reality may be truly perceived. Fascinating characters clearly wrought, and an astounding plot expertly presented in stunning language leave me, as before, with an intense desire for MORE! If you enjoyed "The Physigiognomy", this sequel is a must. I strongly recommend reading them in order as "Memoranda" relies heavily on the history of the previous tale. Highly recommended.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Insubstantial.,
By Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Memoranda (Paperback)
Wenau, the edenic commune formed by the former citizens of the Well-Built City, has once again fallen under Below's curse. Now it is up to a reformed Cley, who is now a herbalist, to journey into the werewolf-infested ruins in search of the antidote, only to discover that Below himself has succumbed to his engineered plague, and the only antidote is concealed inside Below's mind."Memoranda", the second in the Cley trilogy, suffers from a tone of absurd pomp, as the previous one suffered from its lugubrious arrogance. The plot is unsatisfying, because there are no undertones, no backstory or foreshadowing, no emotional significance. The narration suffers from sudden bouts of pointless immaturity, instantly preventing any and all suspension of disbelief (like Quismal, the horse that frothes at both ends). The characters are meaningless to the reader, because they are extremely flat, and, in any case, Ford presents them as mere figments of Below's imgination. Ford has perfected the fleeting, episodic feeling of dreams, but it is time to move on, or at least expand the topic. Why use such sophisticated language if it goes to waste? Ford states facts and events, without involving the reader, who ends up being a disinterested, neutral presence: the island is flating in the air ("Is that so?"); the Delicate eats people ("Oh, is that what it does?"). Many readers (myself among them) feel compelled to see this series to the end, but reading "Memoranda" is like reading a napkin.
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