Toni Morrison's, Beloved, begins like a river. The cascade of words form a story which sounds like it's being told to you by your grandmother or some elderly matriarch. The steady pace and diction with which the words sound in the reader's head are what allow this story to take on this evocative tone. It is a kin to listening to an audio-book. Like any story passed on by verbal tradition, this story deals with memory. Specifically, a mother forgetting a memory of a dead child.
"My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that. Eight children and that's all I remember"
This passage really stuck out to me. It seemed to play with something that I thought of once. The thought that, 'can one learn to forget'? It's odd, paradoxical, just like a mother trying to forget her children. Even now as I think about what to say next, I am troubled by this question. One can learn, and one can forget, but can one do both simultaneously? Rather, can a gain yield a loss? Mathematically, no. Gramatically, yes. Philosophically, maybe. So it would seem now, that there is a problem. The mother is attempting the impossible. She's trying to turn lead into gold, or what she thinks is gold. I suppose we'll see if she can do it.
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