Memento Mori, a short story written and read by Jonathan Nolan

October 24, 2016 6:44 PM

"Your wife always used to say you'd be late for your own funeral. Remember that? Her little joke because you were such a slob—always late, always forgetting stuff, even before the incident. Right about now you're probably wondering if you were late for hers." This is the beginning of Memento Mori, a short story by Jonathan Nolan, which was originally published with an Esquire article Everything you wanted to know about "Memento". Jonathan also read the story, which became the movie Memento (trailer, original 2000 era website, still online - previously, twice).

The short story opens with a line from Herman Melville's poem, "Shiloh: A Requiem" (April, 1862) [thoughts on the poem]

posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

Man I love this movie but in no way do I pretend to really understand it. Like so many things in life letting it wash over you time and again energizes some deep neural pathways and I'm content with that awakening as opposed to the satisfaction of rationally understanding it all. Thanks for bringing new to me articles to light.
posted by mrzz at 7:28 PM on October 24, 2016

Not sure how I missed that there are two Nolans collaborating.

Memento is one of those films that feels a little dated now just because so many things seem to have copped from it. That said, it would make a great double feature with Primer.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:06 AM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is still my favorite Memento parody. Kinda wrong and definitely NSFW.
posted by starscream at 3:37 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Looking forward to reading the short story. Of course, now I'll have good reason to rewatch the movie too -- it'll be fun to compare/contrast the two...
posted by Nogamii at 7:38 AM on October 26, 2016