If
someone asked me think back to five years ago today and to give an account of
my day, I would be left unable to answer. I cannot remember what I ate that
day, what I wore, where I was, or who I was with. I could guess that I went
into my high school that day, as that is what I typically did in February 2013,
however I could not be sure even of this—perhaps I stayed home sick or went on
a field trip that day. While I would not be able to give a detailed description
of a day in my life that occurred so long ago, or even of a seemingly random or
ordinary day a few months ago, I can recall details of any day that is of great
importance in my life. For example, I can recall nearly everything about the
day last August that I left to study abroad in Berlin. I remember how I felt
sitting in traffic with my dad on the way to the airport, I remember weighing
my luggage and taking out sweaters that put it just over weight, I remember the
feelings I had boarding the plane, and the taste of the chicken pot pie served
on it for dinner. Further, I remember drinking an Americano at the Starbucks in
the Dublin airport during my very long layover while watching the season finale
of Game of Thrones, and I remember giving the address of my apartment building
to a taxi driver who spoke very little English when I landed in Berlin. Being a
day that acted as a turning point in my life and evoked a number of strong
emotions within me, I can remember many specifics of August 20th,
2018. This is also true of several other days throughout my life, such as the
day I got my license and the day my brother graduated from college. Because
something significant happened during each of these days, I can remember more
about them—even seemingly insignificant details, such as that I wore a purple
turtleneck to my road test and a black sundress to the graduation. The fact
that we as individuals can remember important days in our lives in much more
detail than those that seem ordinary or typical shows the way that memory works.
Memories that are important to us tend to stick with us and often do so with
immense clarity, while the memory of less significant days or events tend to
fade over time. This is true not only with my memory, but also of the memory of
most people. My parents, as well as many others, for example, can tell me where
they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the 9/11
attacks, as the day stands out as a turning point in their lives. However, like
me, they could not tell me what happened on a random day in February five years
ago.
Throughout many of the novels that we
have read in class this semester, memory plays a significant role and tends to
work in this way, showing clarity in the events that are most important. For
example, in A Tale for the Time Being,
Nao remembers the moment in which she bathed with Jiko for the first time, as
well as the time she beat up once of the boys from her school, very vividly.
She remembers exactly how she felt and what she saw in those moments. Likewise,
Mark in The Martian recalls the day
that his crew took off for their mission in great detail. At the start of Ready Player One, the day that the
contest in OASIS was announced and that James Halliday died is depicted as one
that stuck out in the memory of not only one individual, but of everyone in the
society. Ernest Cline begins the novel with the narrator recalling that “Everyone
my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard
about the contest. I was sitting in my hideout watching cartoons when the news
bulletin broke in on my video feed, announcing that James Halliday had died
during the night” (1). By choosing to start the novel in this way, Cline shows
the reader immediately that the day the contest was announced was a turning
point in history. It was not the same as the release of any other video game.
It had historical consequences and changed lives, thus an entire generation of
individuals can remember in detail the moment that it happened. The preface ends
with the narrator recalling:
Then, on the evening of February 11,
2045, an avatar’s name appeared at the top of the Scoreboard, for the whole
world to see. After five long years, the Copper Key had finally been found, by
an eighteen-year-old kid living in a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma
City. That kid was me. Dozens of books, cartoons, movies, and miniseries have
attempted to tell the story of everything that happened next, but every single
one of them got it wrong. So I want to set the record straight, once and for
all. (9)
The
narrator remembers February 11, 2045 very clearly, as it is of great importance
in his life. Because of this, throughout the novel, he attempts to set the
record straight with the details that he recalls, rather than allowing the
memory of others to tell the story, as in movies and other accounts, “every
single one of them got it wrong.” The narrator claims that this is the purpose
of his account. This is similar to Nao’s initial purpose of writing her diary—she
wants to set the record straight and keep the memory alive of Jiko so that her
legacy can live on. Likewise, Mark initially leaves the logs in order for
people to later find them if he does not survive in order to continue his own
memory. These characters want memory to live on beyond themselves and to do so
in an accurate way—in the way that they remember. However, this brings up
questions about the validity of memory—are our memories always true since they
are from our perspective and factor in the way that we remember things? Or, can
we, from our limited perspectives, remember things incorrectly, and is it
better to have more than one memory to narrate the truth? Memory, and how it
represents time, is relevant in many of the books we have read thus far, as
well as in the real world and in important events of our lives.
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