Dislocations
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
How do you keep a friendship intact, when Alzheimer's has stolen the common ground of language, memory, and experience, that unites you?
In brief, sharply drawn moments, Sylvia Molloy’s Dislocations records the gradual loss of a beloved friend, M.L., a disappearance in ways expected (forgotten names, forgotten moments) and painfully surprising (the reversion to a formal, proper Spanish from their previous shared vernacular). There are occasions of wonder, too—M.L. can no longer find the words to say she is dizzy, but can translate that message from Spanish to English, when it's passed along by a friend.
This loss holds Molloy’s sense of herself too—the person she is in relation to M.L. fades as her friend’s memory does. But the writer remains: 'I’m not writing to patch up holes and make people (or myself) think that there’s nothing to see here, but rather to bear witness to unintelligibilities and breaches and silences. That is my continuity, that of the scribe.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Argentine novelist and critic Molloy (Reading Dates) examines the nature and significance of memory in her gleaming English-language fiction debut. The narrator, S., takes up the role of "scribe" as she chronicles her longtime friend M.L.'s struggles with Alzheimer's, noting how M.L.'s memory "keeps leaving pieces by the roadside." In language by turns tender and probing, S. recounts almost daily visits to see M.L. Certain passages delve into the unpredictability of Alzheimer's, such as when M.L. translates her caretaker L.'s notes on her symptoms for the English-speaking doctor, even though she herself is unable to recall or comprehend her own health problems. Other sections focus on the 45-year-long friendship between the two women, but as M.L.'s memory weakens, so does the history on which the friendship is founded, calling attention to the role of memory in reinforcing present ties. Heartbreaking and illuminating, the varied moments are beautifully rendered in short, noncontinuous chapters that mimic M.L.'s oft-fleeting mind, with its fractured recollections and random thoughts. A graceful study of memory, identity, and relationships, this is one to cherish.
