Suppose that books were banned (all forms and worldwide). The only way to continue knowledge of such was to memorize it (as the wood-dwelling rebels did in the story). The rebels chose to memorize some of the following:

* Bertrand Russell
* Thoreau
* Byron
* Thomas Paine
* Machiavelli
* Aristophenes
* Lincoln

Supposing you could remember a book (or the majority of it at least), which book (or author perhaps?) would you choose to memorize?

I suppose now, I would choose, A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow. Not just because it's such a very personal thing for me, but because it is, in fact, a very good book - real, funny, tragic, inhabited by living people and full - Oh full of young life and hope and energy.

But I wonder, since you just finished Fahrenheit 451, did you see any similarities between the people who just want to be entertained and those "wall shows" and the reality shows of today? That is seems that many do just want to be entertained? The fact that entertainment news is far more popular than real news? Does anyone else find this unsettling? My apologies if I am off track. I, also, recently read Fahrenheit 451 and closed the book with shaking hands.

PAM

I have memorized great parts of my daily prayer book which has many ancient and traditional prayers that I recite to myself in times of tedium or stress, as well as some large swathes of the Bible. I also think over the plots of certain books, such as Lord of the Rings, parts of which I have virtually memorized.

I wish I had more poetry committed to memory; indeed I find it very challenging to memorize these days. Once upon a time it was quite easy.

Memorizing a novel would be quite an arduous chore. There are several books I've read more than thirty times and I am nowhere close to memorizing them. Long passages are familiar to me, but I can only quote a line or two or maybe three here and there.

What I think would be more likely in my own case would be that I would commit to memory a close following of the plot with favorite lines. In fact, if I were serious about preserving a beloved novel, I would attempt to shorten it and translate it into poem form, though I am no true poet, then memorize that. The meter of a poem is a powerful device to aid memory.

Yes, I too have thought about this.

Rosefolly

woodnymph, I can understand wanting to memorize Le Grand Meaulnes. I loved that book.

woodnymph, I can understand wanting to memorize Le Grand Meaulnes. I loved that book.

Back to the original question. As Dido is looking after "A Kind of Loving", I think perhaps I'd memorize "The Snow Goose" by Paul Gallico. Quite beautiful, if a little sentimental - and it also has the major advantage of being very short...

As for memorizing, I am not sure I would be successful at this. I can only just remember the punch line to the one joke I learn a year, let alone a whole book. I can remember title/author combos though.

I'll choose Christopher Fry's The Lady is Not for Burning and Shakespeare's King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I already have some sad love poetry from when my heart was broken sophomore year and Tennyson's Ulysses and some of Swinburne's The Garden of Proserpine. What an odd assortment I've picked.

When I was sixteen I could memorize a script, including other people's lines, in two read-throughs. Today I'm lucky if I can remember a 7 digit telephone number for the 4 seconds it takes to dial it.

I recall reading that a political prisoner used to tell her fellow inmates the story of Heyer's "Friday's Child" which they called "What Kitten did next". She had loved and memorised the story.

I wonder how many times people in prison, political or otherwise, have survived through stories.

Rosefolly

I failed rather dismally, but then I do have the memory of a goldfish for this sort of thing.

How about you guys?

Annpan, Fry's use of language makes me happy. "I love you as deeply as many years could make me, but less deeply than many years will make me." I looked it up, btw, and found I'd slightly misremembered it. Like I said, I'd be the bard that inadvertently changes the tale.

But to be fair, I guessed a few - they sort of "felt" right.

I, for one, am not in the slightest bit surprised that Dido got 10/10...

I once knew a Finn who could recite the Finnish epos Kalevala word for word and used to recite it to his son at bedtime.

I love that book and read it OFTEN, esp. around the Holiday Season.

nola_anne