[.ca] The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory (ISBN 0674576225)

Just one story:
One of the positive side-effects of Oliver Sacks is that he has called attention in America to the works of the great Soviet psychiatrist Aleksandr R. Luria, many of which have been translated from Russian into English. "The Mind of a Mnemonist" is a slim book that tells the story of a man identified only as "S," whom Luria knew and worked with for decades, a man who literally could not forget. Like other such bottomless memories, "S" was a side-show curiosity whose ability was a burden as much as a gift. Luria details the difficulties "S" had in grappling with daily life, where thinking clearly depends so much upon forgetting the useless. I have no idea whether Borges had ever seen this book when he wrote "Funes the Memorious," which is a wonderful fictional account of just such a mind. The book also takes a fascinating detour into the condition that somehow gave "S" his powers, synesthesia. People with synesthesia can "hear" colors and "see" sounds. Smells have textures. Shapes have sounds. This seems to be a natural condition in infancy, but most people lose it, except for remnants of this when people talk about "warm" colors or "cold" sounds. The composer Alexander Scriabin was among those who retained a complex synesthetic sensitivity into adulthood. S. was another. "What a crumbly, yellow voice you have," he told one psychologist. For him, numbers had personality: "5 is absolutely complete and takes the form of a cone or a tower -- something substantial. ... 8 somehow has a naive quality, it's milky blue like lime ...." And Luria gives this account of an experiment: "Presented with a tone pitched at 2,000 cycles per second and having an amplitude of 113 decibels, S. said: 'It looks something like fireworks tinged with a pink-red hue. The strip of color feels rough and unpleasant, and it has an ugly taste -- rather like that of a briny pickle ... You could hurt your hand on this.' " Experiments were repeated over several days at the Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow, with dozens of tones, and the results were invariably the same. This synesthesia of sound is the essence of poetry, too. Dante divided words into "pexa et hirsuta," combed and unkempt (or "buttered and shaggy" in Ezra Pound's translation). S. used exactly the same words -- "prickly," or "smooth" -- for sounds, voices, words. If you don't need one author to do all your thinking for you, if you can take what you read in one place and apply it to what you know from others, this book will expand your awareness of the human experience in an unforgettable way.

In the annals of memory:
Referenced in numerous psychology and memory books is where persons might locate this book. The account of S. and his spectacular memory is almost legendary in the psychology, and memory community. This was my fortunate pleasure in locating the above reference in the following book: Your Memory How It Works and How To Improve It By Kenneth Higbee. A fine memory book. The Mind of a Mnemonist is not written as a fictional account of a person named "S". Non-fiction might be where the beauty lies. Aleksandr Romanovich Luria is a Russian psychologist. The mnemonist "S" is a Jewish man. S. is studied under a 30 year period. At the beginning of study, S. is under 30 yrs of age. Luria catalogues his work very well. From the beginning of Luria's research then continuing to analyze S's memory then furthering to S's mind, behaviors, and then personality. Moreover, S. makes many of the comments of his own memory ability throughout this book. In analyzing S's memory, Luria leads the reader to deal with Synthesia of which S. possesses. This a integral part of S's phenomenal memory ability. S. would see splashes of color or puffs of steam regarding different sounds. In chapter 3 Luria conducted different sound tests of which analyzed S's Synthesia. For more information regarding Synthesia, I would recommend Richard Cytowic's book "The Man Who Tasted Shapes". Luria also deals with S's ability to figure math problems. S has a great ability to easily solve certain math problems. His visualization capabilities are in high assistance with his ability here. Chapter 5 is most interesting: Luria comments on S's "Strong Points" and "Weak Points" regarding his memory. Strong points -as mentioned above- are his ability in visualizing math problems, visualization, graphic detail in story lines, and his efficiency ability. Weak points are S's reading ability. S. cannot read much material because words conjure up vivid images in which S. is forced to deal with. Abstract words, sentences, almost have no meaning to S. because of loss in the words meaning. Poetry was particularly difficult. "His control of his behavior" is another outstanding chapter by Luria. Luria comments on S's ability to control his body temperature by visualization. S. also has the ability to control his heartbeat by visualization. One of the most spectacular written accounts of which S. himself writes,"To me there's no great difference between the things I imagine an what exist in reality". This is a very powerful quotation and one can see what problems, or luxuries this may have. On one particular account, S. was supposed to wake up for school. He visualized the clock and reckoned there was more time before school. Then his mother is coming into the room and saying, "you haven't left yet". S's visualizations were completely real to himself. In addition, S. has graphic memories of infancy. I wanted to remark on some of the chapters and different subject areas in this book. As seen, there is a lot of fascinating work done here. What makes this book special is Aleksandr Romanovich Luria details, and allows S. to explain his own abilities. Many great memorists or savants in the past have seemed unable to accurately explain their memory technique. I have remarked on a few of the points in this book, there is much more. The Mind of a Mnemonist is a fine example of a psychologist's account of memory ability and well written. I thank previous reviewers for there correct comments on this book.

Great idea; imperfect execution:
Fascinating concept and much-heralded innovation in psychological analysis could have been woven into a classic but the result falls short. As a prior review points out quite helfpfully, S. (the subject of Luria's analysis) uses ancient mnemonic tecniques of which the author seems ignorant, although the most cursory research in the field of memory would have revealed them to him. Readers should not repeat Luria's error; read Frances Yates' "The Art of Memory" after finishing this book. In addition, Luria relies far too often on the subject's self-description and analysis even in matters that could have been tested or at least observed. As a result, the impact of the subject's psychological condition on his day-to-day life is addressed but only descriptively; the subject is not brought to life or "humanized" as commentators claim. The subject could have written this book better himself.

Effect of prodigious memory on personality:
Some of the other reviewers have faulted Luria for not noticing the resemblance bewteen his subject's memory techniques and those used in the Middle Ages. With all due respect to those reviewers, the point of this book (clearly stated by Luria in the introduction) is to examine the effect of such a remarkable capacity for memory on the development of the subject's PERSONALITY. The key is in the approach: to examine how personality structure may hinge on a feature of psychic activity. This book does NOT concern itself specifically with the mechanisms of memory, although, of course, these are discussed as a preliminary to the discussion of memory's effect on personality development.

An interesting casestory.:
It is indeed a very interesting story of a man with (apparently) a limitless memory. Where vivid visual imagery helps him remember, but handicaps him as well, as he (e.g.) can't read a single line of text without evoking a lot of images, somehow not singling out what is most important in a sentence. Images those provides both an obstacle and an aid to learning. A sentence like "the work goes under way normally" gets difficult to grasp because each word produces a separate image that distracts him - still he is a great mnemonist because of these same powers to produce images. Enlightening. Still, there is a lot more to be learned (and said) about memory and how it actually works, than what is found here. But it is a start. -Simon