Sunday, January 25, 2026

Transcription by Ben Lerner

 

Memory is fleeting. It’s why we have recorded our lives since time immemorial— on stone tablets and today, we connect through digital tablets. At its heart, Lerner’s brilliant novel, tinged with evanescence, is about communication. The narrator’s daughter Emmie, struggling with a lack of interest in food, turns the corner with soothing (to her) videos through a tablet. When his father is quarantined with COVID in the early days of the pandemic, it’s again an inefficient medium that serves as communication vector. Do these methods amplify or dilute our memories? Lerner explores this thesis well in this delightfully cerebral novel. 

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