The Chinese Memory Palace in His Mind
ByThe Guardian has a fascinating interview (video and text) with NYU professor Tony Judt, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in late 2008. Judt is managing to work on essays and books, and to continue teaching, despite the rapid onset of the disease:
Judt is already working on the book, using the same memory technique that he deployed for his NYRB essays. During the night he builds in his mind a Chinese memory palace – or in his case a modest Swiss house – and into each of its rooms he imagines placing a paragraph or theme of the piece he is composing. The next day he recalls each room in sequence, unloading its contents by dictating it to his assistant.
Some people have tried to comfort him with the thought that such mental discipline renders Judt’s condition bearable. How wrong they are. “There have been people who have said to me, ‘Tony, you are so lucky. More than anyone you live the life of the mind. It could have been so much worse.’”
To which he replies: “Hello! Are you from Planet Zurg? This is one of the worst diseases on Earth. It is like being in a prison which is shrinking by six inches each day.”
‘A bunch of dead muscles, thinking’ (The Guardian)
1 Comments
January 20th, 2010 at 7:16 am
A close friend of mine died of this disease at the age of 47. His ‘cell’ shrunk 6 inches a day for about 8 years until he was finally rendered trapped. The focus of intellectual capacity has to be weighed against the indignities of (very personal) nursing, financial insecurities, lessening of basic communication (including relaying for need to be itched, moving of limbs to lessen the pain of bed sores etc), and finally the absolute heartache of facing your loved ones most days with a mutual fear of ‘this could be the day’.
I would suggest to people who think anyone with this condition could possibly be termed ‘lucky’, to have a quiet word with themselves on their long flight back to Planet Zurg.