This is by far the worst book i"ve ever read, and as they say those who don't do.. teach... and those who can't teach... teach gym. He should try teaching or something else but NOT WRITING! for god's sake spare us the littany!

This book presents a brilliant account of how memory is both essential to our functioning in the world, and simultaneously weighs us down. The force of the past that still occupies us in memory is a constant theme in culture and individual experience. By studying both the general phenomenon and specific instances in a series of important 19th and 20th century texts, this book shows us memory's double-sided, Janus-faced character. On the one hand, memory makes it possible for us to feel we can own our past; on the other hand, memory recreates neurotic or repetitive interruptions of our awareness to the here and now. The author develops a powerful account of how memory functions in our lives, and examines a series of powerful texts (by Freud, Proust, Baudelaire, and Musset) that give voice to the theme of memory. Required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the stresses of modernity and postmodernity