Forgetfulness: A Novel [Paperback]

Michael Mejia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2005

The first part of Forgetfulness is a fictional monograph on the life of the Austrian modernist composer Anton von Webern (1883-1945).The collage-work monograph unfolds in a Webernian sequence of events and silences combining quotes from Webern, his friends and associates, and various historical and literary figures with short scenes, monologues, dialogues, newspaper articles, and theater and film scripts. The result is a lyrical panorama of early twentieth century Vienna.

The second part of the book takes place in Vienna on May 1st, 1986, shortly before the election of Kurt Waldheim as President of the Austrian Republic and shortly after the Chernobyl disaster. The three simultaneous, intertwining monologues of an archivist, a retired opera singer, and the author of the monograph, revisit the themes and events of the first part, commenting on postwar conceptions, analyses, and revisions of the period during which Webern lived, while continuously haunted by the specters of Waldheim and Chernobyl, the persistence of crimes that are immanent, unpaid for, or only dimly, disingenuously recalled.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Michael Mejia's beautiful book Forgetfulness, like the music of Webern, Berg, and Schoenberg it describes, is at once rhapsodic and brilliantly patterned; intoxicating and starkly lucid; avant-garde and deeply lyrical; cleverly calculated and fiercely loving."
--M. T. Anderson, Fiction Editor, 3rd bed

"Like archeological discoveries that recast the present, Michael Mejia's astonishing novel Forgetfulness reconstructs what art does best. Imagine music-and fiction-as a portrait of how the world works, instead of as entertainment or any of its other uses, and you'll get an intimation of his achievement." --Steve Tomasula , author of Vas: An Opera in Flatland

About the Author

A native of Sacramento, California, Michael Mejia spent two years swinging from the lowest rungs of the Hollywood ladder before moving to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. While completing his degree, he also worked as a writer, video producer, and on-camera personality for Integrated Science 7, an award-winning and internationally distributed science education program for middle school students that took him around the world, from Alabama's gulf coast to Hawaii, Mexico, Iceland, and Australia. Currently, Michael lives with his fiancée and their Jack Russell Terrier in Rome, Georgia, where he teaches creative writing at Berry College.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Fiction Collective 2; 1 edition (April 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573661228
• ISBN-13: 978-1573661225
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,799,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Unexpected, July 23, 2006

By 

Lydia M. Netzer "Shine Shine Shine" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forgetfulness: A Novel (Paperback)

I didn't expect to love this book, in fact I came to it as if it were going to be a chore. I came away completely in love with it, entranced by the language, drawn in by the ideas.

Mejia's book is a masterpiece. To make a successful book, if you're going to experiment with form, you have to make the prose so beautiful, so rewarding, that the reader is not only willing but happy to do the extra work of deciphering your unfamiliar structure. This book was such a delight, completely without traditional plot or characters, that I couldn't put it down. I don't know when I've had that experience with a book that looked so challenging in form. At the end of the day, I truly felt that Mejia's approach was the only way to present the material in the way he envisioned. It was an absolute success. Made me care about things I didn't really care about, and think about things I'd never considered. A beautiful read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully rendered beauty, August 22, 2008

By 

Mitchel Knight "LouisVortex" (Portland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forgetfulness: A Novel (Paperback)

A beautifully rendered book in which every "note", like Anton Webern's, is heard distinctly, resonating through each change, shift, and tone. Like Beckett, but using more than just language as an experiment - history, music, and the creeping (and creepy) sense of the zeitgeist breathing everywhere.

Although I would recommend having somewhat of a knowledge of Schonberg, Webern, and Berg, as well as the political environment between the World Wars, it is not essential to the enjoyment of this book. Background information helps elucidate the separate elements (this is a very elemental novel), this story is so transfixing as to hold anyone's attention with an interest in new forms of fiction.

I can't wait to read it again.