Vincent J. Cheng, Amnesia and the Nation, History, Forgetting, and James Joyce (Davide Crosara)

“What should we remember?” “What should we forget?” These questions (which Cheng explicitly quotes from Jewish historian and philosopher Yosef Yerushalmi) run through Vincent J. Cheng’s compelling study regarding notions of memory and forgetfulness in the fiction of James Joyce. This ethical dilemma mimics the incessant questioning that keeps memory alive. As Cheng notices in his introduction to the volume (p. 6), while Mnemosyne was the goddess of memory, her sister Lesmosyne was the goddess of forgetting: the two are inextricably intertwined. Memory and trauma studies have devoted much interest to the act of remembering; however, noticeably less attention has been paid to amnesia and forgetfulness. The work of James Joyce opens up the possibility of a poignant investigation of the deep correlation between these notions.