April 29, 2025 • 23 mins
What was I reviewing again?
'A Primer For Forgetting' by Lewis Hyde is a collection of intimate thoughts, stories, poems, mythological tales & quips. The primary theme is around forgetting & how this can be beneficial for an individual or groups, particularly when it relates to trauma. It's split into 4 parts (that he calls notebooks) about myth, self, nation & creation.
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Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:40) Themes/Questions
(00:14:04) Author & Extras
(00:17:08) Summary
(00:20:11) Value 4 Value
(00:21:21) Join Live!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyrin Down (00:00):
What was I reviewing again?
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Mere Mortals book reviews. I'm your host here, Kyrin, live on the 04/30/2025.
And as you might surmise, this is the podcast where I teach you about all the memory tricks to remember everything that's ever happened in your life.
(00:25):
Okay. No. No. Definitely not that. And you probably won't actually find that in this book that we have here, A Primer for Forgetting
by Lewis Hyde. Getting Past the Past,
which is a book published in 2019.
'3 hundred and '40 '1 pages in length. Took me about seven hours of reading to get through in total, I'd say.
(00:45):
It's relatively thick pages, although there's quite a few which have a lot of blank space in them as well.
And there's also some with just random little photos and other things which take up a bit of the the page space as as well.
Now this is a collection of intimate thoughts of stories of some poems
(01:06):
of those artistic,
drawings or paintings or
artworks that I I mentioned just then, mythological tales and quips. So,
the primary theme, I guess, is around forgetting and how this can be beneficial for an individual or for groups of people, particularly when it relates to something like trauma. Now,
(01:26):
it's split into four parts in total that he calls notebooks, which relate to myth, self, nation, and creation. And I'll dive into those a little bit more shortly. In fact, I'll probably do it right about now. So the themes for this
can forgetting be useful, which once again is hinting at the subtitle here, getting past the past.
(01:49):
And much of the writing is in this is putting a
positive framing
spin on how forgetting things can actually
be useful
and why you would maybe want to do this. It's not really about
an active
thing that he's talking like, you know, a kind of self development thing. It's more related around
(02:09):
here's some instances in my life or through history or
it's a very kind of artistic book in general. There's probably one thing you need to know right up at the front
because most of the time
you if you were to ask someone, you know, is just forgetting, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It'd probably be viewed as maybe like a negative thing, maybe neutral, you know? But he's actually saying like, this is a real positive thing
(02:34):
that can happen in one's life. So
in particular,
it's related
to traumas
and
the and so even though he's dealing with the
nature of forgetting things of and by this I mean
not being able to recall
or letting the past go.
(02:56):
He's certainly viewing it all in this negative
site. And it's
not really about things like
the neurochemical
way that we forget things of like synopsis or brain chemistry or anything like that. No, no, no.
It's all very much related to this kind of idea of of trauma and,
and how
(03:16):
artistic works have dealt with this topic as well. So
what kind of things? Well, you know, perhaps the murder of loved ones, of racial injustice like apartheid in South Africa,
health problems of loved ones, of his own mother who had dementia,
and
things like this. So some real examples in this book, I guess, will help to demonstrate what he talks about a lot.
(03:40):
He has this
little quick quip here. It was just a one page thing, but it really stood out to me of this woman who
I think was was raped once and was, you know, dealing with this trauma and then, you know, decided, I guess, to form a support group or to talk about these types of things
and help other people who have gone through similar experiences.
(04:03):
And
she was actually saying that the worst after many years of doing this, someone was asking her like, you know, what
what do you think of it now of your own experience? How do you relate to it? And she says, the worst part of it is just how boring it's become. And I guess that is a way of moving beyond
her own horrific experience, which was obviously
(04:26):
to her at the at the time it happened. And then immediately afterwards, very, very impactful.
But then over the years, the
dullness of it has crept in. Now, is that necessarily forgetting?
Probably some portions of it is because now
her relation to that is because she's talked about it so much. She probably relates it to things like conferences
(04:47):
and, you know, travel and things like this.
Another is
called dissociative
agnosia or non knowing,
which
he relates to a woman who was caring after her mother and her mother passed away. And, you know, basically she was still
in this kind of state of thinking her mother was alive
(05:08):
and, you know, you know, concerned about getting food for her and things like this, which
was basically a hallucination of some sort,
which allowed her to, I guess, gradually acclimatize to her her mother's actual passing over a period of months. I think it was. So
this is where you can see forgetting is
(05:29):
somewhat helpful in that it doesn't
really
come right at the front.
You know, the power of simply letting things slide
instead of hanging on to terrible experiences, I guess, is
the overarching thing that is getting at because never forgetting can be a curse of sorts.
Many other examples in the book, much like Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose wife, I believe, died in childbirth,
(05:54):
you know,
remembering that
for the rest of his life,
mourning and raging over fallen soldiers in battle,
you know, even on a personal note, like,
do I want to remember my mom
as she was in her last months,
which was and this is for myself here,
(06:16):
which was filled with a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, you know, easily the,
I guess,
most
traumatic
version of her I've ever seen in my life, and obviously for her as well. Or would I rather try and remember
what she used to be like?
(06:37):
These are all questions which
are interesting
and and worthy of, I guess, like a little bit of note, something like this.
He has these four sections. So the as I mentioned, it was split into
myth, self, nation and creation. So myth was very much like, here's a bunch of stories from Greek mythology
of, you know, where they would have an embodiment of perhaps forgetting
(07:01):
and would relate things to that self was kind of personal stories. Like I was just mentioning a bunch of them there. Nation
was probably the one of the more interesting parts I found, which was
the idea of a forgetting
in terms of a culture. And this is in particular when replied to
(07:21):
apartheid in South Africa
or there was
a thing called Sand Creek, which was a massacre of Native American Indians.
And this is where it's kind of like, okay, the
if you have a whole nation
obsessed with
getting justice for what was done
(07:43):
to to them
or to a certain select people in this nation?
Is this helpful for
the people who perpetrate the crime and for the people who also had the crime committed committed against them? And you might say like, oh, there should be justice of some sort. But
when there is
a such a tight interlinking
(08:04):
of people, when does justice become vengeance? And, you know, a justice might
actually just be revenge and then revenge begets revenge sort of deal. And so
the idea of having these kind of amnesty periods where,
in in South Africa you could kind of be forgiven.
(08:25):
And
a lot of this links to like forgiving
as well. How does this play into forgetting and getting past getting past the past?
The
was I think a 31 Tyrants, the 30 Tyrants in Athens
where they they basically took over the city,
did a whole bunch of things like stealing,
(08:47):
people's properties, killing people,
doing a lot of a
disrespect towards other citizens.
They then got overthrown. And then it's like, okay, do we get justice against all these people? But, you know, they are such a large portion of the city. You essentially be like cutting your city in half or a third,
and then Sparta will come over and take you over or whatever. So
(09:09):
that was probably one of the more interesting concepts I got from this book.
And he talks about this kind of cry for help that,
America has. And he was talking about The United States a fair bit. He was he was from there. I believe he participated in many of the,
what do you call it?
The civil rights movement
(09:30):
in the
sometime in the nineteen hundreds. I can't remember when that exactly was probably like 1960s.
And,
the thing that really stood out to me a lot from this was,
sure, I think getting past the past is a
unique concept, but
there's still
(09:50):
a lot of things which
he talks about here where it's it's obvious that they haven't got over it. And
judging from the all the
crazy, you know, like the Black Lives movements, the protests,
the extreme civil disturbances they've had in the last, let's just say, five years,
(10:11):
it's obviously that they haven't gotten over it. So
what what do you do in this case? Do you then try and do like a forceful forgetting of these sorts of things?
And
I always
kind of ask and question for myself, why do people attach so much to things from the past as well, Especially if it's not related to them or if it's a very kind of tenuous relationship, you know, maybe it happened something to your your father or your grandfather.
(10:39):
But even in that case, you know, if it's something from sixty years ago,
maybe I'm just being insensitive here, but the idea of reparations,
on a large scale of,
or of monuments
or things like this,
it seems like it's it's very the problem is, I guess you're you're catching yourself as a victim of of some sort, which is a very,
(11:05):
I guess, weak, unempowering position to be in.
And yes,
I understand. Like the
you don't you don't want to let injustices slide.
But just the practicality of
of seeking reparations or seeking revenge or justice or whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, I don't know. I definitely
(11:27):
am a fan proponent of this idea of just forgetting things and letting letting them go. Like, why why hold on to things which are causing you so much hurt?
Because aren't we all victims if we go back enough generations?
Interesting to note in this book that
he he has this kind of line of of promoting this idea of forgetting, but I'm not sure that
(11:52):
it can be applied broadly as well.
And so
even though he shows the positives of forgetting, I don't think he's necessarily
saying that remembering is bad, although he does have this kind of constant theme that he comes back to or or,
message, which was or a myth, if you wanna call it that, which was of Cicero,
(12:15):
Cicero's memory palace, if you know if you've heard of that concept, which is where you can remember things by
creating a visualization of a room or a place that, you know, and attaching
ideas or local
or memories to that. And so, you know, if I'm going through my own house, it's like, okay, if I need to remember the one number one, I go into I go into this room and then one is there and then I look into a cupboard in there and the number three is there and then I go and do this thing. And that way you'll be able to remember like a really long string of numbers if you follow this kind of memory palace idea. And the
(12:52):
root of that the of that story was from this guy Simonides,
who luckily avoided death when he was at a banquet of some sort.
And when he comes back in, you know, everyone's crushed by this this falling roof and all their bodies are mangled. But he remembered where everyone was sitting at this banquet. So they were eventually able to, like, sort out the bones or the remains and things like this.
(13:15):
And so I guess you could say, like, memory in this case is very much rooted in death. And, what was it? The the tree of memory sets its roots and blood,
which is a very
vivid image.
But it's more that
forgetting,
I guess, is
necessary to carve the sculpture from the marble, if you want to call it that way. So if you have a work of art, obviously there's the sculpture
(13:41):
itself, but
it's the missing pieces of it, which also
you could claim,
what gives it its shape was what gives it its,
artistic merit and things like this. So you could put a spin on it that way. The discarded parts are just as essential as the actual piece piece itself.
Couple of random thoughts that that came up in in all of this.
(14:04):
Let's jump into the author extra details.
I've talked about Mr. Lewis Hyde in my previous review of Common as Air, so I won't cover him too much here. Already mentioned this American author.
His style in the book is very different. And he mentions this in the foreword,
that it's going to be
a collection of thoughts. It's not going to be a purposeful theme. And you probably
(14:27):
already
realize that with my own meandering
kind of ideas on the theme, the main core of, of what came up in this book, because it really was all over the shop.
The myth and creation creation sections are very chaotic in particular.
That's just a random bunch of just
(14:48):
almost like mind
notes, like little notebooks. I guess he mentioned he was
just taking things down that would anything related to memory that he came across probably in his life over a three or four year period did just write down. So that kind of
makes sense.
And so they don't have a directing purpose.
They're they're all over the shop.
(15:10):
Makes sense because they're also related to poetry and art. So that
it kind of fits in with that. I guess the other two of self and nation certainly have a more driving point. The
pieces
go together much more. I forgot to mention this, but I think there's only, like,
four
or five pages in a row, which will be on the same topic, and then it will jump to another one. So
(15:36):
it is really all over the shop. You're getting, like,
three paragraphs
thing and then the next page and then the next page. So one note I made whilst reading this is on the
time periods he covers,
it's very much when he talks about this,
that it's about the past, obviously, but then how it relates to the future.
(15:58):
It doesn't seem to really cover much of the present moment. Now, right at the end of the book, he does talk about some
Zen
and type concepts which are very much rooted in the present. But things like, for example,
what is the experience of forgetting the tip of the tongue where you're trying to remember something, but it's just like it's in there, but you can't really get it out
(16:21):
or the bewilderment of losing your keys, for example. You know, it's something that you have done just
moments prior and then and that just missing suddenly,
the bizarre state of completely blanking on an appointment where it's, you know, something that you should know and then it's just it's just like that it's almost like that thing never happened.
(16:42):
How
I remember it, but I don't remember it.
The joy of an old friend perhaps unlocking a memory or things like this. I would like to hear more of that and how it relates to the present moment,
but you don't really hear much of that. It's really it's very much rooted on this is what it's the experience or thoughts on forgetting
and how it relates to the future, but not really to the present moment as well. So that would have been nice to to hear about. So in summary, similar books, recommendations,
(17:10):
I've got to say, this didn't really appeal to me. The
structure of the book was just so chaotic that,
I don't know, I'm more favorable to the rigorous style of dissection rather than this kind of haphazard dealing of left and right. You know, what's going on here? What's this mean?
It really just just did come across as like a mind dump of just
(17:32):
blah. Like, here you go. Here's a whole bunch of shit.
The self and nation stories were intriguing. I did like learning about,
little mini snippets of stories from apartheid South Africa
of
a massacre that
happened, you know, in the I think it was like the 1800s
in in The United States
(17:54):
of some civil rights movements, things of, you know, a murder. And I think it was Mississippi.
All those stories were intriguing. I did like them,
but
a large portion of the book was
just straight up like, okay,
I just read it and then I completely forgot it. Maybe that's maybe that's a piece of the artwork as well.
(18:14):
So I think there was some unique insights in the topic, but largely it fell flat for me.
It's it's a hard one to review because
there was things in there which I think were interesting that I will remember and that
I I will probably perhaps find useful or was worthy of talking about, but just so much of it wasn't.
That that's what makes it hard, and which is why I'm gonna ultimately
(18:37):
give a primer for forgetting, getting past the past by Lewis Hyde a four and a half out of 10.
I can't really recommend it per se, but perhaps you if you enjoy this kind of collection of mini stuff, it would be, good for you.
Now
the reason a whole reason I read this book,
even though it's a recently published one, was because I really enjoyed the author. Lewis Hyde, I mentioned Common Isaiah book review. That was
(19:03):
that was a really good book. I loved the direction of that, and I
found it to be a very impactful book, hence why I wanted to give this one a try.
You know, I
still cemented my mind that I really shouldn't be reading modern books, you know, published within the last decade,
because largely
that they're kind of trash and I don't find them useful.
(19:26):
That being said, I will I do want to try his two other books of, the gift and tricks to make this world.
And,
yeah, I've read similar things to this. But once again, the style of these many snippets isn't so good. For some reason, the
Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique Balbi
(19:49):
kind of recalls to me as some something kind of similar to this book. You know, a man trapped in his own body and he's
reflecting on portions and things from his life jumping to and from the past. It's not really about forgetting, but I think it has this kind of similar
quality to to the book. So, yeah, maybe, maybe trying that one out if you want to do that.
(20:11):
So that's it for today. This is a value for value podcast. Thank you very much for for joining in.
I do all of this and make it available anywhere, anytime for anyone.
And all that I ask is that, if you got any value from this, you just return it. So there's no ads, no sponsorships,
no,
you know, promotions of books on this is just purely what I want to read and to my thoughts on the books themselves.
(20:36):
Now you can do this in many different ways. Time sharing with a friend. You know, word-of-mouth is super critical to to podcasts like this
of,
liking, subscribing,
joining on any of the social media.
Talent, I would love to know your book recommendations. What are some things that you think I would enjoy or not enjoy? Your thoughts on this book,
(20:57):
also really interesting to me. I would love to hear on them. And then finally, some treasure. If you want to support us monetarily,
you can do this via the PayPal link down below
or go to meand mortals podcast Com / support. And there's ways you can do this directly within your podcasting app. I'm pretty sure I saw Lyceum doing this, the other day again as well. So very much thank you for to him for doing that.
(21:21):
And then finally, what is coming up? Well, I am live here as as usual.
Didn't see anyone,
posting anything in the chat even though,
I see a couple of people actually joining in. So very much thank you. Oh, wait. Here we go. The Jim Crow Laws by Sam Doe following George Floyd's death, or even equality or even corresponding numbers too. Mister Hyde is a brilliant lad. I once met him, at a pub, and we talked mostly philosophy. Nice. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I, actually, I think reached out to him once to get him on the mere models, conversations podcast.
(21:54):
And I believe he was very busy, so that never happened.
But, yeah, there was there was a lot of in this book about the jaw, Jim Crow laws, not about George Floyd's death. I don't believe that had happened. I think that was in 2020.
I'm sure
they would have made their way into the book, if if they had.
Yeah. It's it was hard and it was a hard book to really review and get through in total. It's just just not my style, but I definitely do wanna read his, his two other ones. So, thank you very much, Sam, and I see one also appearing up in the chat as well.
(22:29):
What is coming up? So I'm going to do a kind of, like,
not official book review, just talking about the types of books that I read, where where I get my suggestions from, how I kind of filter them out, the reviewing,
the the pre reviewing stage, I guess, if you will, because this was a comment that came up, quite a while ago.
(22:49):
And then I am going to read,
the popular delusions,
extraordinary popular delusions of crowd and the madness of crowds,
by Charles Mackay, which is a pretty fat, thick book that I've got over there. And then I'm gonna be going traveling. So there's gonna be probably some little bits and pieces of gaps,
very haphazard for the next two months after that while I'm traveling, and then we'll get back into a regular routine once I am back again. So
(23:16):
thank you very much for everyone for joining in. I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Ciao for now. Kyron out. Bye.
What was I reviewing again?
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Mere Mortals book reviews. I'm your host here, Kyrin, live on the 04/30/2025.
And as you might surmise, this is the podcast where I teach you about all the memory tricks to remember everything that's ever happened in your life.
(00:25):
Okay. No. No. Definitely not that. And you probably won't actually find that in this book that we have here, A Primer for Forgetting
by Lewis Hyde. Getting Past the Past,
which is a book published in 2019.
'3 hundred and '40 '1 pages in length. Took me about seven hours of reading to get through in total, I'd say.
(00:45):
It's relatively thick pages, although there's quite a few which have a lot of blank space in them as well.
And there's also some with just random little photos and other things which take up a bit of the the page space as as well.
Now this is a collection of intimate thoughts of stories of some poems
(01:06):
of those artistic,
drawings or paintings or
artworks that I I mentioned just then, mythological tales and quips. So,
the primary theme, I guess, is around forgetting and how this can be beneficial for an individual or for groups of people, particularly when it relates to something like trauma. Now,
(01:26):
it's split into four parts in total that he calls notebooks, which relate to myth, self, nation, and creation. And I'll dive into those a little bit more shortly. In fact, I'll probably do it right about now. So the themes for this
can forgetting be useful, which once again is hinting at the subtitle here, getting past the past.
(01:49):
And much of the writing is in this is putting a
positive framing
spin on how forgetting things can actually
be useful
and why you would maybe want to do this. It's not really about
an active
thing that he's talking like, you know, a kind of self development thing. It's more related around
(02:09):
here's some instances in my life or through history or
it's a very kind of artistic book in general. There's probably one thing you need to know right up at the front
because most of the time
you if you were to ask someone, you know, is just forgetting, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It'd probably be viewed as maybe like a negative thing, maybe neutral, you know? But he's actually saying like, this is a real positive thing
(02:34):
that can happen in one's life. So
in particular,
it's related
to traumas
and
the and so even though he's dealing with the
nature of forgetting things of and by this I mean
not being able to recall
or letting the past go.
(02:56):
He's certainly viewing it all in this negative
site. And it's
not really about things like
the neurochemical
way that we forget things of like synopsis or brain chemistry or anything like that. No, no, no.
It's all very much related to this kind of idea of of trauma and,
and how
(03:16):
artistic works have dealt with this topic as well. So
what kind of things? Well, you know, perhaps the murder of loved ones, of racial injustice like apartheid in South Africa,
health problems of loved ones, of his own mother who had dementia,
and
things like this. So some real examples in this book, I guess, will help to demonstrate what he talks about a lot.
(03:40):
He has this
little quick quip here. It was just a one page thing, but it really stood out to me of this woman who
I think was was raped once and was, you know, dealing with this trauma and then, you know, decided, I guess, to form a support group or to talk about these types of things
and help other people who have gone through similar experiences.
(04:03):
And
she was actually saying that the worst after many years of doing this, someone was asking her like, you know, what
what do you think of it now of your own experience? How do you relate to it? And she says, the worst part of it is just how boring it's become. And I guess that is a way of moving beyond
her own horrific experience, which was obviously
(04:26):
to her at the at the time it happened. And then immediately afterwards, very, very impactful.
But then over the years, the
dullness of it has crept in. Now, is that necessarily forgetting?
Probably some portions of it is because now
her relation to that is because she's talked about it so much. She probably relates it to things like conferences
(04:47):
and, you know, travel and things like this.
Another is
called dissociative
agnosia or non knowing,
which
he relates to a woman who was caring after her mother and her mother passed away. And, you know, basically she was still
in this kind of state of thinking her mother was alive
(05:08):
and, you know, you know, concerned about getting food for her and things like this, which
was basically a hallucination of some sort,
which allowed her to, I guess, gradually acclimatize to her her mother's actual passing over a period of months. I think it was. So
this is where you can see forgetting is
(05:29):
somewhat helpful in that it doesn't
really
come right at the front.
You know, the power of simply letting things slide
instead of hanging on to terrible experiences, I guess, is
the overarching thing that is getting at because never forgetting can be a curse of sorts.
Many other examples in the book, much like Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose wife, I believe, died in childbirth,
(05:54):
you know,
remembering that
for the rest of his life,
mourning and raging over fallen soldiers in battle,
you know, even on a personal note, like,
do I want to remember my mom
as she was in her last months,
which was and this is for myself here,
(06:16):
which was filled with a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, you know, easily the,
I guess,
most
traumatic
version of her I've ever seen in my life, and obviously for her as well. Or would I rather try and remember
what she used to be like?
(06:37):
These are all questions which
are interesting
and and worthy of, I guess, like a little bit of note, something like this.
He has these four sections. So the as I mentioned, it was split into
myth, self, nation and creation. So myth was very much like, here's a bunch of stories from Greek mythology
of, you know, where they would have an embodiment of perhaps forgetting
(07:01):
and would relate things to that self was kind of personal stories. Like I was just mentioning a bunch of them there. Nation
was probably the one of the more interesting parts I found, which was
the idea of a forgetting
in terms of a culture. And this is in particular when replied to
(07:21):
apartheid in South Africa
or there was
a thing called Sand Creek, which was a massacre of Native American Indians.
And this is where it's kind of like, okay, the
if you have a whole nation
obsessed with
getting justice for what was done
(07:43):
to to them
or to a certain select people in this nation?
Is this helpful for
the people who perpetrate the crime and for the people who also had the crime committed committed against them? And you might say like, oh, there should be justice of some sort. But
when there is
a such a tight interlinking
(08:04):
of people, when does justice become vengeance? And, you know, a justice might
actually just be revenge and then revenge begets revenge sort of deal. And so
the idea of having these kind of amnesty periods where,
in in South Africa you could kind of be forgiven.
(08:25):
And
a lot of this links to like forgiving
as well. How does this play into forgetting and getting past getting past the past?
The
was I think a 31 Tyrants, the 30 Tyrants in Athens
where they they basically took over the city,
did a whole bunch of things like stealing,
(08:47):
people's properties, killing people,
doing a lot of a
disrespect towards other citizens.
They then got overthrown. And then it's like, okay, do we get justice against all these people? But, you know, they are such a large portion of the city. You essentially be like cutting your city in half or a third,
and then Sparta will come over and take you over or whatever. So
(09:09):
that was probably one of the more interesting concepts I got from this book.
And he talks about this kind of cry for help that,
America has. And he was talking about The United States a fair bit. He was he was from there. I believe he participated in many of the,
what do you call it?
The civil rights movement
(09:30):
in the
sometime in the nineteen hundreds. I can't remember when that exactly was probably like 1960s.
And,
the thing that really stood out to me a lot from this was,
sure, I think getting past the past is a
unique concept, but
there's still
(09:50):
a lot of things which
he talks about here where it's it's obvious that they haven't got over it. And
judging from the all the
crazy, you know, like the Black Lives movements, the protests,
the extreme civil disturbances they've had in the last, let's just say, five years,
(10:11):
it's obviously that they haven't gotten over it. So
what what do you do in this case? Do you then try and do like a forceful forgetting of these sorts of things?
And
I always
kind of ask and question for myself, why do people attach so much to things from the past as well, Especially if it's not related to them or if it's a very kind of tenuous relationship, you know, maybe it happened something to your your father or your grandfather.
(10:39):
But even in that case, you know, if it's something from sixty years ago,
maybe I'm just being insensitive here, but the idea of reparations,
on a large scale of,
or of monuments
or things like this,
it seems like it's it's very the problem is, I guess you're you're catching yourself as a victim of of some sort, which is a very,
(11:05):
I guess, weak, unempowering position to be in.
And yes,
I understand. Like the
you don't you don't want to let injustices slide.
But just the practicality of
of seeking reparations or seeking revenge or justice or whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, I don't know. I definitely
(11:27):
am a fan proponent of this idea of just forgetting things and letting letting them go. Like, why why hold on to things which are causing you so much hurt?
Because aren't we all victims if we go back enough generations?
Interesting to note in this book that
he he has this kind of line of of promoting this idea of forgetting, but I'm not sure that
(11:52):
it can be applied broadly as well.
And so
even though he shows the positives of forgetting, I don't think he's necessarily
saying that remembering is bad, although he does have this kind of constant theme that he comes back to or or,
message, which was or a myth, if you wanna call it that, which was of Cicero,
(12:15):
Cicero's memory palace, if you know if you've heard of that concept, which is where you can remember things by
creating a visualization of a room or a place that, you know, and attaching
ideas or local
or memories to that. And so, you know, if I'm going through my own house, it's like, okay, if I need to remember the one number one, I go into I go into this room and then one is there and then I look into a cupboard in there and the number three is there and then I go and do this thing. And that way you'll be able to remember like a really long string of numbers if you follow this kind of memory palace idea. And the
(12:52):
root of that the of that story was from this guy Simonides,
who luckily avoided death when he was at a banquet of some sort.
And when he comes back in, you know, everyone's crushed by this this falling roof and all their bodies are mangled. But he remembered where everyone was sitting at this banquet. So they were eventually able to, like, sort out the bones or the remains and things like this.
(13:15):
And so I guess you could say, like, memory in this case is very much rooted in death. And, what was it? The the tree of memory sets its roots and blood,
which is a very
vivid image.
But it's more that
forgetting,
I guess, is
necessary to carve the sculpture from the marble, if you want to call it that way. So if you have a work of art, obviously there's the sculpture
(13:41):
itself, but
it's the missing pieces of it, which also
you could claim,
what gives it its shape was what gives it its,
artistic merit and things like this. So you could put a spin on it that way. The discarded parts are just as essential as the actual piece piece itself.
Couple of random thoughts that that came up in in all of this.
(14:04):
Let's jump into the author extra details.
I've talked about Mr. Lewis Hyde in my previous review of Common as Air, so I won't cover him too much here. Already mentioned this American author.
His style in the book is very different. And he mentions this in the foreword,
that it's going to be
a collection of thoughts. It's not going to be a purposeful theme. And you probably
(14:27):
already
realize that with my own meandering
kind of ideas on the theme, the main core of, of what came up in this book, because it really was all over the shop.
The myth and creation creation sections are very chaotic in particular.
That's just a random bunch of just
(14:48):
almost like mind
notes, like little notebooks. I guess he mentioned he was
just taking things down that would anything related to memory that he came across probably in his life over a three or four year period did just write down. So that kind of
makes sense.
And so they don't have a directing purpose.
They're they're all over the shop.
(15:10):
Makes sense because they're also related to poetry and art. So that
it kind of fits in with that. I guess the other two of self and nation certainly have a more driving point. The
pieces
go together much more. I forgot to mention this, but I think there's only, like,
four
or five pages in a row, which will be on the same topic, and then it will jump to another one. So
(15:36):
it is really all over the shop. You're getting, like,
three paragraphs
thing and then the next page and then the next page. So one note I made whilst reading this is on the
time periods he covers,
it's very much when he talks about this,
that it's about the past, obviously, but then how it relates to the future.
(15:58):
It doesn't seem to really cover much of the present moment. Now, right at the end of the book, he does talk about some
Zen
and type concepts which are very much rooted in the present. But things like, for example,
what is the experience of forgetting the tip of the tongue where you're trying to remember something, but it's just like it's in there, but you can't really get it out
(16:21):
or the bewilderment of losing your keys, for example. You know, it's something that you have done just
moments prior and then and that just missing suddenly,
the bizarre state of completely blanking on an appointment where it's, you know, something that you should know and then it's just it's just like that it's almost like that thing never happened.
(16:42):
How
I remember it, but I don't remember it.
The joy of an old friend perhaps unlocking a memory or things like this. I would like to hear more of that and how it relates to the present moment,
but you don't really hear much of that. It's really it's very much rooted on this is what it's the experience or thoughts on forgetting
and how it relates to the future, but not really to the present moment as well. So that would have been nice to to hear about. So in summary, similar books, recommendations,
(17:10):
I've got to say, this didn't really appeal to me. The
structure of the book was just so chaotic that,
I don't know, I'm more favorable to the rigorous style of dissection rather than this kind of haphazard dealing of left and right. You know, what's going on here? What's this mean?
It really just just did come across as like a mind dump of just
(17:32):
blah. Like, here you go. Here's a whole bunch of shit.
The self and nation stories were intriguing. I did like learning about,
little mini snippets of stories from apartheid South Africa
of
a massacre that
happened, you know, in the I think it was like the 1800s
in in The United States
(17:54):
of some civil rights movements, things of, you know, a murder. And I think it was Mississippi.
All those stories were intriguing. I did like them,
but
a large portion of the book was
just straight up like, okay,
I just read it and then I completely forgot it. Maybe that's maybe that's a piece of the artwork as well.
(18:14):
So I think there was some unique insights in the topic, but largely it fell flat for me.
It's it's a hard one to review because
there was things in there which I think were interesting that I will remember and that
I I will probably perhaps find useful or was worthy of talking about, but just so much of it wasn't.
That that's what makes it hard, and which is why I'm gonna ultimately
(18:37):
give a primer for forgetting, getting past the past by Lewis Hyde a four and a half out of 10.
I can't really recommend it per se, but perhaps you if you enjoy this kind of collection of mini stuff, it would be, good for you.
Now
the reason a whole reason I read this book,
even though it's a recently published one, was because I really enjoyed the author. Lewis Hyde, I mentioned Common Isaiah book review. That was
(19:03):
that was a really good book. I loved the direction of that, and I
found it to be a very impactful book, hence why I wanted to give this one a try.
You know, I
still cemented my mind that I really shouldn't be reading modern books, you know, published within the last decade,
because largely
that they're kind of trash and I don't find them useful.
(19:26):
That being said, I will I do want to try his two other books of, the gift and tricks to make this world.
And,
yeah, I've read similar things to this. But once again, the style of these many snippets isn't so good. For some reason, the
Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique Balbi
(19:49):
kind of recalls to me as some something kind of similar to this book. You know, a man trapped in his own body and he's
reflecting on portions and things from his life jumping to and from the past. It's not really about forgetting, but I think it has this kind of similar
quality to to the book. So, yeah, maybe, maybe trying that one out if you want to do that.
(20:11):
So that's it for today. This is a value for value podcast. Thank you very much for for joining in.
I do all of this and make it available anywhere, anytime for anyone.
And all that I ask is that, if you got any value from this, you just return it. So there's no ads, no sponsorships,
no,
you know, promotions of books on this is just purely what I want to read and to my thoughts on the books themselves.
(20:36):
Now you can do this in many different ways. Time sharing with a friend. You know, word-of-mouth is super critical to to podcasts like this
of,
liking, subscribing,
joining on any of the social media.
Talent, I would love to know your book recommendations. What are some things that you think I would enjoy or not enjoy? Your thoughts on this book,
(20:57):
also really interesting to me. I would love to hear on them. And then finally, some treasure. If you want to support us monetarily,
you can do this via the PayPal link down below
or go to meand mortals podcast Com / support. And there's ways you can do this directly within your podcasting app. I'm pretty sure I saw Lyceum doing this, the other day again as well. So very much thank you for to him for doing that.
(21:21):
And then finally, what is coming up? Well, I am live here as as usual.
Didn't see anyone,
posting anything in the chat even though,
I see a couple of people actually joining in. So very much thank you. Oh, wait. Here we go. The Jim Crow Laws by Sam Doe following George Floyd's death, or even equality or even corresponding numbers too. Mister Hyde is a brilliant lad. I once met him, at a pub, and we talked mostly philosophy. Nice. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I, actually, I think reached out to him once to get him on the mere models, conversations podcast.
(21:54):
And I believe he was very busy, so that never happened.
But, yeah, there was there was a lot of in this book about the jaw, Jim Crow laws, not about George Floyd's death. I don't believe that had happened. I think that was in 2020.
I'm sure
they would have made their way into the book, if if they had.
Yeah. It's it was hard and it was a hard book to really review and get through in total. It's just just not my style, but I definitely do wanna read his, his two other ones. So, thank you very much, Sam, and I see one also appearing up in the chat as well.
(22:29):
What is coming up? So I'm going to do a kind of, like,
not official book review, just talking about the types of books that I read, where where I get my suggestions from, how I kind of filter them out, the reviewing,
the the pre reviewing stage, I guess, if you will, because this was a comment that came up, quite a while ago.
(22:49):
And then I am going to read,
the popular delusions,
extraordinary popular delusions of crowd and the madness of crowds,
by Charles Mackay, which is a pretty fat, thick book that I've got over there. And then I'm gonna be going traveling. So there's gonna be probably some little bits and pieces of gaps,
very haphazard for the next two months after that while I'm traveling, and then we'll get back into a regular routine once I am back again. So
(23:16):
thank you very much for everyone for joining in. I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Ciao for now. Kyron out. Bye.
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