I remember / je me souviens

I remember / je me souviens

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For those limbic bursts of nostalgia, invented by Proust, miniaturized by Nicholson Baker, and freeze-dried by Joe Brainard in his I remember and by Georges Perec in his Je me souviens.

But there are no fractions, the world is an integer
Like us, and like us it can neither stand wholly apart nor disappear.
When one is young it seems like a very strange and safe place,
But now that I have changed it feels merely odd, cold
And full of interest.
--John Ashbery, "A Wave"

Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
--Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

I remember that when my uptown grandfather was demobilized at the end of the First World War, he had to walk three weeks -- from near Russia, I believe, back home to Vienna. I remember finding out that he fought for Austria against Italy, and being unhappy since I loved Italy so much. It was strange consolation to know that Austria and Italy were on the same side in the Second World War -- it was only much later that I found out that this was the wrong side, and that Austria and Italy were against him.

I remember being "mali," Yugoslav for: the little one. How did that change?

I remember noticing one day that I could understand Yugoslav. Not suddenly understanding it, but noticing that I could understand it even though it wasn't my language. That seemed vaguely mysterious: it was like my relation to my grandparents. Familiarity, family-arity, but yet something different and not quite essential to me. It, and they, belonged to a world I could explore, that would welcome my exploration, but not quite to the world that didn't need exploring: home and my own language.

posted by william 8:48 AM
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