"He hadn't yet organised his memories of the conference into anecdote and he knew that unless he gave them that structure they would slip down the nearest drain."
— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Chatto & Windus
Date
2000
Metaphor
"He hadn't yet organised his memories of the conference into anecdote and he knew that unless he gave them that structure they would slip down the nearest drain."
Metaphor in Context
Patrick's attention drifted among the various incompatible approaches to consciousness he had been exposed to over the last three days. He hadn't yet organised his memories of the conference into anecdote and he knew that unless he gave them that structure they would slip down the nearest drain. Once he had described what had happened, on the other hand, the story would gradually colonise the experience, the alternative details would disappear and only those that served the story would be allowed to survive. The experience was already shaped by another story about who he was, but only the feed-back loop of description could give the experience enough solidity to survive in active memory.
(p. 133)
(p. 133)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Edward St. Aubyn, A Clue to the Exit (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000).
Date of Entry
09/19/2015
