Online NewsHour: Memory Madness- October 2, 2000



	MEMORY MADNESS

	October 2, 2000
	Essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers the power of memory.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Memory: An impossible subject. One either remembers too little or too much, and we're never sure which is worse, though we spend more time thinking about remembering too little.

Memory loss, in Alzheimer's Disease, is an occasion for helpless sorrow. Memory loss, when remarked upon as one grows older, is merely a nervous joke. A poem called "Forgetfulness" begins "The name of the author is the first to go, followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel, which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of."

The progression is funny, and not so funny. Reach a certain age-- say, 50-- and things that were around a moment ago begin to disappear: The name of the capital of North Dakota; the name of the president who preceded FDR. It was a vacuum cleaner, yes, a vacuum cleaner? That's what the machine is called, right? And then, the name of the star of "Casablanca"; and the pretty red flower that grows in window boxes; and then the name of your first girlfriend or boyfriend; and then... what is it you were trying to recall?

On the other hand, historians deal with the problem of remembering inadequately, or for the wrong reasons. James E. Young, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, has recently written a book called "At Memory's Edge," about the proposed national Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

The artifact of memory implies contrition by the German government, which in turn suggests that memory is a way to innocence. Ought that to be encouraged? France apologizes for its complicities in the Holocaust. The Pope apologizes for centuries of anti-Semitism. America apologizes for slavery. These are more than acts against memory loss; they suggest that memory retrieved may lead the way to paradise regained. For the rest of us who live on a more ordinary, less exalted plane, the inability to get hold of memory has a private seriousness.

There is a telling moment in "Citizen Kane" when Kane's successor as editor, played by Everett Sloen, tells the reporter about a girl he saw as a very young man. He was standing on one ferry, she on another, as the ferries crossed.

ACTOR: A white dress she had on, and she was carrying a white parasol. And I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all. But I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: And yet, in that same movie, the Joseph Cotten character laments:

JOSEPH COTTEN: I can remember absolutely everything, young man. That's my curse. That's one of the greatest curses ever inflicted on the human race, memory.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: One struggles to remember, and then one struggles not to.

ACTOR: Rosebud.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: One wishes to remember, unless memory hurts. Then memory loss seems a saving grace. In the film "A Brief History of Time," about the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, a teacup falls and smashes to the floor to illustrate the space between the past and the future.

With a trick of the camera, one may run the reel backwards and make the teacup whole again. But the mind has more trouble with reassembly. It often depends on what one wishes to put back together again. Not every reconstruction turns out as happy as Humpty-Dumpty.

Scientists are working with a protein that helps nerve cells in the brain store memories, which means that soon, popping a pill will allow one to memorize the entire novel, the title of which the poet forgot; or to learn a new language; or get a college degree in a matter of months. And yet, even here, the scientists warn that the magic pill may also force us to remember every one of the ingredients on a cereal box, every name in the credits of a movie.

The way science is going, someone may come up with a pill that allows us to edit memory-- to lose recollection of past sins and mistakes, lost opportunities, bad times, and recall only moments of triumph and joy. Would you take such a pill?

I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

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