Amacord by Zoran Živković

 

What makes you you? Philosophers throughout history have devoted much serious thought to the nature of personal identity - thinkers from John Locke and Thomas Reid to Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell have repeatedly returned to one key element above all: memory. Ah, memory - how much of you would be left if one day you woke up without your memory?

The title of this short novel by Serbian author Zoran Živković is from Federico Fellini's famous 1973 film Amarcord and that's Amarcord as in "I remember," i.e., I call upon my memory. And it is memory that is central in each of the author's ten short interconnecting stories where the chapter headings are the titles of classic works of world literature: 1. Crime and Punishment, 2. Vanity Fair, 3. Great Expectations, 4. Sentimental Education, 5. Dead Souls, 6. Lost Illusions, 7. Les Miserables, 8. The Magic Mountain, 9. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 10. Fahrenheit 451.

Please don't be put off - even if you are not familiar with any or all of the above listed novels, that in no way will hamper your reading pleasure. And let me assure you, Zoran Živkovićs' Amarcord is a delight. To illustrate, allow me to delve into three of the ten chapters where we listen in as an unnamed first-person narrator tells their tale.

Crime and Punishment: When the narrator opens his eyes, he has the sensation he has been submerged in milk. He attempts to move his arms and legs but he can’t budge – he realizes he’s strapped down on a small bed. The surrounding walls and ceiling are covered in white padding. A deep male voice asks a series of question, including: How are you? Where were you born? Who are your parents? Where do you live? What do you do to put food on the table? He reflects for a moment and tells the voice he remembers absolutely nothing.

As he quickly discovers, he was subjected to an operation that removed every trace of his memory. And for good reason: he is a convicted criminal who has committed horrendous, violent murder. His memory was removed in order to facilitate close scrutiny of the criminal mind, all for the overall benefit of society. But not to worry: he is about to undergo a second procedure so as to be given an entirely different memory – new memories; new man. And as a man with a new set of memories, he will be relocated to a different city on the other side of the country. Of course, all for the good of society.

What?! Any society daring to engage in such drastic medical practices raises a plethora of philosophic and ethical questions revolving around topics like the nature of identity and the authenticity of selfhood along with addressing the rights of the individual. Not to mention restrictions that should be placed on the power of the state.

What adds particular flair to this tale is the way in which Zoran Živković retains his signature storytelling charm even when writing about eerie mind control, a topic more likely to be found in a work by Philip K. Dick or Clark Ashton Smith.

Great Expectations: The narrator, an old retired gent I’ll call Philip, permits an impeccably dressed middle-aged man with a briefcase to enter his apartment. The stranger informs him that he has something to offer that could be of great interest. Philip admits at his age he rarely is offered anything. The stranger asks: “What expectations do you have out of life?” What an odd question. In turn, Philip inquires: what expectations could he ever have nowadays at the tail end of his earthly journey?

A lively conversation ensues and Philip confesses his memories are meager since his years were filled mostly by hours of performing a tedious job. Ah, the stranger remarks, “We can offer you a completely new memory but not your own.” Turns out this stranger is offering Philip vivid memories of a life filled with great joy. When Philip hesitates, the stranger goes on to inform Philip that he will also have his own set of memories when the injection wears off in about twelve hours. Injection? The stranger explains how a nurse will routinely pay visits to administer the injections in the beginning but soon thereafter he can do it himself.

When Philip’s interest is piqued, the stranger hands Philip a catalogue of possible memories he can choose from. Philip muses: “I returned to the armchair and started to leaf through the catalogue. Its bright colors slowly supplanted the grayness of the disorder that surrounded me. Life does indeed become more cheerful when a man has some expectations.”

The author’s story brings to mind philosopher Robert Nozick’s “Experience Machine.” In this philosophic thought experiment, Robert Nozick is asking us to ponder the value of pleasurable artificial experiences versus our very own less pleasurable “real experiences.” Are Epicurus, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and other hedonist philosophers correct? Is pleasure the ultimate aim of life? If we had the choice, would we prefer a life of artificially induced pleasure rather than our current life? Would we change our mind if the pleasure could be increased to the point of ecstasy, of bliss? Would our decision depend on our age? What would you do if you were old Philip living his last months?

Fahrenheit 451: Zoran Živković wrote an entire series of mosaic novels where characters and themes from the previous chapters are reintroduced and given something of a twist in the final chapter. Amarcord is one such mosaic novel. Any reader familiar with Ray Bradbury's exemplary story of memorizing the content of books will especially appreciate this chapter's magical twist.

Since a good number of Amarcord's chapters present the narrator with a choice of swapping one set of memories for another, I'll end on a personal note. I have a specific dyslexia pertaining to learning any foreign language - try as I might, I can not retain in my memory words or phrases from a language other than English. A university psychologist said my type of dyslexia is rare but it does exist. Anyway, I'm compensated by my capacity to remember the content of the books I've read stretching back over the past fifty years as if I read those books last week, an ability that comes in handy for a book reviewer. So what if I was given a choice: gain a special ability to learn foreign languages but lose the facility to remember the books I've read or will read; in other words, in one ear and out the other? Such a choice makes me feel as if I'm a character in Zoran Živković's Amarcord.


Serbian author Zoran Živković, born 1948