Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.
All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand.
After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.
Memory is a fiction we tell ourselves: just a piece of the truth.
Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.
There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.
Even as I think of myself as a 'rememberer,' I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better.
I'm a big believer in sort of sense memory, like using something that you've experienced in order to put yourself in the position that the character is in.
Memory narrativises itself.
Literature is memory written down. All literature is memory.