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Location: New York, NY, USA
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What is memory? One and the same amid East Europeans and the Western world? Outstanding among Patricia Hampl's essays, I COULD TELL YOU STORIES: SOJOURNS IN THE LAND OF MEMORY, is "Czeslaw Milosz and Memory," a brilliant discussion concerning this Lithuanian and Polish poet, whose personal history and that of his fellow citizens pivot around that of the nation per se. Memory, for a small country, is the ntion itself. Therefore,the past, the history of a nation, plays a primary role for the East European. Compare this to the American memoirist whose primary focus is the family: "The self is the story; history is just a landscape," writes Hampl. The American (and… Read more
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
The much acclaimed Stones from the River left me with unanswered questions. I was uncomfortable with the idea that a female dwarf and central character, Trudi Montag, managed to live through the Nazi period safe and sound. We must recall Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who experimenced not only with twins, but also with dwarfs, giants, and other such samplings. At one point, Mengele is said to have "welcome" an entire family of dwarfs for his nefarious experimenta (see Nazi Doctors, by Robert Jay Lifton, 1986). Yet Trudi Montag's continued existence is not in the least questionedby Ursula Hegi. True enough, this is a work of fiction,but how much can a writer stretch fiction and… Read more
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The traditional definition of anthropology is the study of man. And the activity immediately associated therewith are the field notes taken on the spot which the anthropologist then transcribes so the immediacy of his findings is preserved. Then there is Claude Levi-Strauss, often called the 'armchair anthropologist.' This literate personage journeyed through central Brazil in the 30s, only to record his findings some 20 later in his book Tristes Tropiques, an untranslated title because no equivalent can be found in English. Reminiscent of his forebear, Marcel Proust, Levi-Strauss presents us with memories distilled through time from which a structure emerges. Let me make clear that… Read more
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