{"product_id":"9780374237219","title":"A Primer for Forgetting : Getting Past the Past","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Lewis Hyde\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“One of our true superstars of nonfiction” (David Foster Wallace), Lewis Hyde offers a playful and inspiring defense of forgetfulness by exploring the healing effect it can have on the human psyche. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe live in a culture that prizes memory—how much we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear—be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness—but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography, and social criticism by the author of the classics \u003ci\u003eThe Gift\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTrickster Makes This World\u003c\/i\u003e. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a creative and political force. It also turns inward, using the author’s own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, \u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Lewis Hyde’s new book is\u003cb\u003e so counterintuitive, so bracingly clear and fresh\u003c\/b\u003e, that\u003cb\u003e reading it is like leaping into a cold lake on a hot hike\u003c\/b\u003e. It shocks the mind. It flushes all kinds of monotony and mental fatigue right out of your system . . . \u003cb\u003eIt is less argument than art \u003c\/b\u003e. . .   I can’t tell you how many times I put it down to stare out the window. I can think of no higher praise.\" —Christian Wiman, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Poet-essayist Hyde celebrates forgetting as \u003cb\u003ea force for creative potency, personal growth, and social justice\u003c\/b\u003e, and in doing so reminds us of his talent for intellectual synthesis and his restless, contrarian spirit . . . in the way of Zen Buddhism, [\u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e] is an invitation to forget our very selves so that we might finally see the universe clearly. And alongside all of the bright-burning erudition, there is a very moving personal angle: his mother's progressive dementia and the prospect of his own.\" —Brendan Driscoll, \u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review) \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eErudite\u003c\/b\u003e . . . Hyde roams freely in this book as he tracks down devotees of memory and those who would much rather forget. Both have left their marks and legacies upon history. \u003cb\u003eWe are beholden to this author for focusing our attention on their actions, thoughts, words, and deeds.\u003c\/b\u003e\" —Mary Ann Brussat, \u003ci\u003eSpirituality \u0026amp; Practice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003ethat bold yet gentle intellectual adventurer, Lewis Hyde, harrows the bottomless mysteries of memory and forgetting, trauma and recovery, amnesia and commemoration, reconciliation and forgiveness. \u003c\/b\u003eIf this deep, poignant, soulful, inquisitive, gently tragic and disarmingly erudite book were nine times longer, I would still have felt sad when I realized it was coming to an end.\" —Michael Chabon, author of \u003ci\u003eMoonglow \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBookends\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Slavery, civil war, genocide—will the consequences of these horrors ever end? Could forgetting be a way to reconciliation? Lewis Hyde distinguishes between kinds of forgetting—one of which may lead to forgiveness and justice. In \u003ci\u003eA Primer \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003efor Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e, he has given us yet \u003cb\u003eanother invaluable work that advances humanity\u003c\/b\u003e.\" —Maxine Hong Kingston, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Fifth Book of Peace\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The sequence of Lewis Hyde’s\u003cb\u003e brilliant cultural interventions\u003c\/b\u003e here reaches a new height, but also a new level of\u003cb\u003e intimacy and compassion\u003c\/b\u003e. The book feels not so much written as 'unforgotten' onto the page, out of our collective desire to rescue the world.\" —Jonathan Lethem, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Feral Detective \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eMotherless Brooklyn\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Compounding and crystalline, penetrating and multifaceted, these collected musings by Lewis Hyde, \u003cb\u003eone of our country’s greatest public thinkers\u003c\/b\u003e, on one of both public and private life’s most formidable conundrums: what to remember and what to forget, how why and when to make room for the future by authentically honoring and incorporating the past . . . but then letting go and moving on.\" —Lawrence Weschler, author of \u003ci\u003eA Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAnd How Are \u003c\/i\u003eYou\u003ci\u003e, Doctor Sacks?: A Biographical Memoir of Oliver Sacks\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In this\u003cb\u003e unforgettable rumination on the power of forgetting\u003c\/b\u003e, Lewis Hyde offers us the gift of his most intimate reflections.  Weaving vengeance, violence, regret, memory, prejudice, identity, forgiveness and transcendence into one entrancing whole, he points the way toward both outer and inner peace.\" —Mark Epstein, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Trauma of Everyday Life\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAdvice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e is the most original and 'slantingly' (in Emily Dickinson’s sense) profound book I’ve read in ages.\" —David Rieff, author of \u003ci\u003eIn Praise of Forgetting \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Reproach of Hunger\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e is a brilliant, original, and provocative work that free associates like an intelligent and ultimately rational dream.” —Dale Peterson, author of \u003ci\u003eJane Goodall: the Woman Who Redefined Man\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Ghosts of Gombe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eA Primer for Forgetting\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003cb\u003eessential reading \u003c\/b\u003efor a nuanced understanding of how the complex of memory-and-oblivion might work together to create a more nimble world in our political present.\" —Ann Hamilton, artist\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLong-listed Wall Street Journal Best Books of the Year (2019)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780374237219\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":40675879289038,"sku":"9780374237219","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_2207a806-385b-4ac0-806b-d8d6c8d01f5a.jpg?v=1639974749","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780374237219","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}