See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog
“REMEMBERING is a serious business,” Charles Fernyhough warns. “For a journey into the past, you have to pick your moment.”
It is this respect for his subject that makes Pieces of Light such an immense pleasure, as Fernyhough casts the emerging science of memory through the lens of his own recollections. The humiliating experience of potty training, for instance, helps him to illustrate the fragmentary, disordered nature of childhood memories before language indexes our past. Touching…
