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“One of our true superstars of nonfiction” (David Foster Wallace), Lewis Hyde offers a playful and inspiring defense of forgetfulness by exploring the healing effect it can have on the human psyche.
We live in a culture that prizes memory―how much we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear―be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness―but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth?
A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography, and social criticism by the author of the classics The Gift and Trickster Makes This World. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a creative and political force. It also turns inward, using the author’s own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil.
Drawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, A Primer for Forgetting is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 22, 2020
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 125061953X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250619532
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 0.96 x 8.25 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #574,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #716 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences #743 in Cultural Anthropology (Books) #5,222 in Memoirs (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 132 ratings });