“Write what should not be forgotten.”
Isabel Allende
With these words it seems that Ms Allende captures one of the most important truths of storytelling and books. That we need to make sure that what must not be forgotten gets recorded, written down and retained.
I guess one could argue that video does this, sound recordings do this, and that saving something to the cloud does this...and yet.
For me each of those methodologies requires and depends on technology of sorts. As I type these words, clearly so does this form of writing. I worry about technology and its capacity to help us retain our memories that should not be forgotten; because it becomes obsolete so relatively swiftly.
In my lifetime I have seen big floppy disks, small floppy disks, CD ROMs, flash drives and more. If I had saved important memories onto a floppy disk - how on earth could anybody have found and read them?
And yes writing immediately privileges those with education and a grasp of language, but even tho our language continually evolves, it fundamentally can be read over the centuries it seems.
Apart from all the technological issues of recording, what I probably most needed to say about this one is that we must all be witnesses to history; we must all record the things that should not be forgotten...
Detail of John Brack's work "Out".
Isabel Allende
With these words it seems that Ms Allende captures one of the most important truths of storytelling and books. That we need to make sure that what must not be forgotten gets recorded, written down and retained.
I guess one could argue that video does this, sound recordings do this, and that saving something to the cloud does this...and yet.
For me each of those methodologies requires and depends on technology of sorts. As I type these words, clearly so does this form of writing. I worry about technology and its capacity to help us retain our memories that should not be forgotten; because it becomes obsolete so relatively swiftly.
In my lifetime I have seen big floppy disks, small floppy disks, CD ROMs, flash drives and more. If I had saved important memories onto a floppy disk - how on earth could anybody have found and read them?
And yes writing immediately privileges those with education and a grasp of language, but even tho our language continually evolves, it fundamentally can be read over the centuries it seems.
Apart from all the technological issues of recording, what I probably most needed to say about this one is that we must all be witnesses to history; we must all record the things that should not be forgotten...
Detail of John Brack's work "Out".
(((Fiona))) a lovely reflection on Isabel Allende's powerful words combined with one of my favourite paintings
ReplyDeleteThey were quite the comb in the end Mo - I love that painting so much...Gow ell.
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