When I started reading Memory Wall, by Anthony Doerr, I found myself recoiling a little. It was the content: the first story is about a woman with dementia who keeps notes to herself all over her wall. Too close to home perhaps; I hate it when I can't remember things. But I kept reading and I'm so glad I did! It took some surprising twists and was amazing and thought provoking. Every story in this collection of shorts is different and beautiful. I love the way memory or memories is dealt with in such different ways, often other-worldly.
From "Memory":
Page 2: Alma stands barefoot and wigless in the upstairs bedroom with a flashlight.
Page 42: "To say a person is a happy person or an unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different kinds of people every hour." (says Alma)
Page 70: What is memory anyway? How can it be such a frail, perishable thing?
From "Village 113":
Page 151: But perhaps, she thinks, there is no good and bad to it at all. Every memory everone has ever had will eventually be under water. Progress is a storm and the wings of everything are swept up in it.
From "The River Nemunas":
Page 175: I wonder about how the sky can be a huge, blue nothingness and at the same time it can also feel like a shelter.
From "Afterworld":
Page 192: She sits up too quickly and her eyesight flees in long streaks.
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