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Memory Theatre
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Check link for latest rating. ( 692 ratings, 112 reviews)
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Memory Theatre
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This work is ideal for readers intrigued by philosophical meditation, experimental narratives, and the complexities of memory and consciousness. Fans of literary fiction that crosses into memoir and speculative thought will find it particularly compelling.
This is part novel, part prose poem illuminated by a series of photographs of New York buildings gradually making and unmaking themselves.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
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Description
A French philosopher dies during a savage summer heat wave. Boxes carrying his unpublished miscellany mysteriously appear in Simon Critchley's office. Rooting through piles of papers, Critchley discovers a brilliant text on the ancient art of memory and a cache of astrological charts predicting the deaths of various philosophers. Among them is a chart for Critchley himself, laying out in great detail the course of his life and eventual demise.
Becoming obsessed with the details of his fate, Critchley receives the missing, final box, which contains a maquette of Giulio Camillo's sixteenth-century Venetian memory theatre, a space supposed to contain the sum of all knowledge. That's when the hallucinations begin.
Memory Theatre is a brilliant one-of-a-kind mind game occupying a strange frontier between philosophy, memoir and fiction. Simon Critchley beguiles as he illuminates.
- David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Memory Theatre is praised as a unique mind game that intertwines philosophy, autobiography, and fiction. David Mitchell commends it for its brilliance and luminous quality, while Marina Warner highlights its blend of historical memory theories with modern ideas about consciousness. Jonathan Lethem admires Critchley's literary approach to philosophical inquiry, describing the book as nourishing and ethically urgent.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780992974718
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 24 September 2014
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Contributors:
- Illustrated by Liam Gillick
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 10.0mm
Height: 196.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 92
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About the Author
Simon Critchley is Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. His previous books include On Humour, The Book of Dead Philosophers, How to Stop Living and Start Worrying, Impossible Objects, The Mattering of Matter (with Tom McCarthy), The Faith of the Faithless, Stay, Illusion!: The Hamlet Doctrine (with Jamieson Webster), and Bowie. He is series moderator of 'The Stone', a philosophy column in The New York Times, to which he is a frequent contributor. Liam Gillick is a British artist based in New York. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002, represented Germany for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, and has taught at Columbia University since 1997. Public collections include: Government Art Collection, UK; Arts Council, UK; Tate, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
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