Customer Reviews

On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Alright, here goes my first amazon review ever. I do not know what it is about this book, but I have never been punched in the heart as hard during the act of reading. I will be honest, I have only read part 1 of this book and yet, if part two does not live up to this greatness, I would still give it a 5/5. I really can not pin down exactly why this book is so powerful. This book is akin to watching "Requiem for a Dream" but instead of leaving you depressed, Jonathan Cott seems to incorporate these astoundingly uplifting segments of text after each upsetting passage. It is this emotional roller coaster - this down, followed by a strong up (that stays 'up') that really gives this book some punch. I have always been disturbed by Alzheimer's disease (along with any form of memory loss), and in the middle of the chapter that deals with it, I might have left the book alone, but by the end of it, I had bitter-sweet tears in my eyes. I am very glad I kept with it. I initially had definite doubts with the format of the book (most of it is in interview style) by I was more than surprised at how absorbing this format is. As the Richard Gere quote on the back says "On the Sea of Memory is a scary book, a teaching book". Usually this means that the following is tough to endure but full of wisdom. Rather, Cott makes the learning experience quite fulfilling and inspiring for such a devastating subject. Simply put, "On the Sea of Memory" is a beautiful book.

Lucid and powerful, this memoir about a man who loses fifteen years of memories is quite astonishing.

When I bought this book I was hoping that it would be more about the author's experience with memory loss from ECT. The first chapter does give the author's experience which I enjoyed very much. The rest of the book is more of a documentary style where the author sits with an authority of some aspect of memory and gives a question and answer style information.

Cott's story is amazing but his reaching out to experts in so
many fields to help us understand memory's role in science,
religion, our humanity is priceless!

This erudite author lost 15 years of his life's memories after 36 electroshock treatments in 1998. The first chapter is a MUST for anyone contemplating this procedure. Jonathan Cott didn't know Princess Diana had died and didn't recognize names in his address book.

But CAVEAT EMPTOR. It appears the author has also had his cojones expunged along with his memories. Skeptically quoting the quacks who promote shock treatment (e.g. Max Fink: "ECT is one of God's gifts to mankind") he nonetheless "anxiously awaits the day" when convulsions can be induced by magnets.

He calls ECT a deal with the devil, a trade off of memory and brain cells with every shock for "improvement" which is temporary at best. He believes that ECT should be used only as a "last resort," a cliche which has rationalized the procedure for 67 years and resulted in the electroshocking of more than 6 million people in the U.S. alone.

Could this be an instance of the taming effect of electroshock? One would think this man would be outraged at having lost 15 years of his life's precious memories.

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