Memoranda [Mass Market Paperback]

Jeffrey Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2000

The acclaimed author of the "World Fantasy Award-winning" New York Times Notable novel, "The Physiognomy," returns us now to a shadow purgatory of strange dreams and striking moral ambiguities.

Once Cley held a position of respect and fear in Master Drachton Below'scruel autocracy. As physiognomist, Cley practiced a sanctioned, twisted science that condemned men and women to death for the size of their foreheads or thrust of their chins. Yet Cley emerged from the ruins of the Well-Built City a better man, dedicated to healing the physical ills of the simpler agrarian society he has chosen to join. Below's great evil, however, has never abated'and he was not destroyed when his dark social experiment exploded. For his own senseless reasons, he has unleashed a plague of sleep upon Cley's friends and neighbors'a disease that, ironically, has felled the Master as well. And the only antidote lies in a terrible place the former physiognomist fears to enter but knows he must: in the surreal house of a madman's dreams, imagination, and remembrances; in the intricate palace of memories Drachton Below has scrupulously constructed in the stygian depths of his mind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The awe-inspiring historical concept of the memory palace is put to grand use in Jeffrey Ford's fascinating novel Memoranda, the sequel to his World Fantasy Award-winning New York Times Notable Book, The Physiognomy.

Cley was once the greatest practitioner of the Physiognomy, a dangerous pseudoscience invented by the twisted tyrant Drachton Below. Since the fall of Below's Well-Built City, Cley has dedicated himself to healing. But when his new people fall into a deadly sleep from which he cannot wake them, he ventures to the ruins of the Well-Built City for the cure. He discovers Below is still alive--but the antidote is lost and Below is asleep, victim to the disease he created. Cley must strike a pact with Below's demon to enter Below's mind in search of the antidote's formula. But even if he survives the demon, Cley may not survive the very real dangers of Below's vast, intricate, and treacherous memory palace--or the disintegration of the dying madman's mind. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Last year, Ford's The Physiognomy won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. Here's a worthy sequel. In the first book, Physiognomist Cley helped bring about the destruction of the Well-Built City, a technological marvel where foreheads, cheekbones, chins were measured in order to determine the moral character of the populace, and where mismanaged science controlled every aspect of life. Now Cley has moved to the primitive village of Wenau, where he works as a healer. His idyllic existence is ruined when the evil Master Below, the ruler of the destroyed Well-Built City, sends a sleeping sickness that quickly spreads throughout Wenau. In order to save his friends, Cley returns to the ruined City to find BelowAand an antidote. Once there, however, he learns that Below himself has been stricken by his own poison. Below's misbegotten demon son Misrix offers to help Cley enter the sleeping Below's mind to seek out the cure. "To decipher the symbols, you need only read the Physiognomy of Father's memory," Misrix explains. Yet traveling through the subconscious of a madman may well be more dangerous than the sleeping sickness itself, for there Cley must interpret a surreal landscape of events, objects and characters, even as they distort his own thoughts. Reading Ford's vivid descriptions of Below's bizarre subconscious is like stepping into a Dal! painting. Ford's symbolic view of memory and desire is as intriguing as it is hauntingAthough the book ends with more questions than it began. Admirers of The Physiognomy will prize this book, while trusting that the next (and conclusion to the trilogy), The Beyond, will clarify Ford's views on the nature of mind and reality.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Eos (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380813688
• ISBN-13: 978-0380813681
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,970,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Striking, original, beautiful fantasy about memory, August 24, 2000

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memoranda (Paperback)

Jeffrey Ford's previous novel, The Physiognomy, won the 1998 World Fantasy Award. If The Physiognomy is as good as its successor, it's easy to see why it won that award. Memoranda is an extremely impressive novel, at times reminding me of Borges, at other times of John Crowley, and throughout striking and original. The bulk of the novel takes places in the strange memory palace, or memory island, that the villain Drachton Below has constructed. Unlike conventional memory palaces, Below has populated his island with his memories of real people, who have some form of independent life, and who conduct experiments. Thus, in a sense, the memory island is actually thinking for Below. The hero, the former Physiognomist Cley, makes a strange journey into Below's mind, and his memory palace, meeting the four people with whom Below has poulated his memory, and falling in love with the one remembered woman, Anotine. But the memory island is falling apart as disease ravages Below's mind, and Cley must enlist the help of the "residents" to try to save Below, and his memory, long enough at least to find the antidote to the disease.

This whole landscape is original, and odd, and often beautiful. The form and setting of the novel provoke thought about the nature of memory. Ford also considers the nature of love, and addiction, and how a wholly evil man can still engender good. The plot is interesting enough, and fairly well resolved, but it's a minor source of pleasure. The prose is very fine, with many excellent images. I found the names of drinks and drugs especially memorable: shudder, sheer beauty, Rose's Old Sweet, Tears in The River, and more. Some of the horrific images, such as the Delicate and the Fetch, creatures Below uses to control his memories, are also very memorable. The characters are nicely realized and affecting, particularly the lost demon Misrix.

Even though this is the middle book of a trilogy, it has a self-contained story that is finished in this volume. That said, you will want to read The Physiognomy once you've read this book, and so it would probably be best to read it first, in the order published. And while the central story of this book is concluded, Cley's life story is definitely left hanging at the end, and I for one eagerly anticipate the third volume, The Beyond.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Literary" fantasy is rarely this much fun., November 10, 1999

By 

Patrick O'Leary - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memoranda (Paperback)

A rich and haunting tale--by turns horrifying,heartbreaking and hilarious, but always surprising. Ford is an eloquent tour guide of inner worlds; his vivid characters, thrilling journeys and impossible landscapes engage us with the startling elusive logic of dreams. A worthy successor to the excellent THE PHYSIOGNOMY, MEMORANDA stands on its own as a beautiful meditation on memory--that most familiar and mysterious inner world. Bravo!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical SurRealism, November 28, 2002

By 

"d_kenall" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memoranda (Mass Market Paperback)

Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers in fantasy-scifi who writes about ideas instead of events. If you like the pity and catharsis of authors like Hawthorne and Melville, the decadent symbolism of Poe, or the logical precision and impassive sadness of Kafka, then I highly recommend Ford as he is their contemporary successor. Those who criticize the plot and characterizations of The Physiognomy and Memoranda do so from misapprehensions regarding the appropriate style and substance of the allegorical genre of fiction which is not to be evaluated by the same criteria as the psychological realist school. Not because it is inferior, but because it is alien and has different goals.