The chart he used until the mid-sixties
January 10, 2025 11:54 AM   Subscribe

Now, see this colored chart? Represented by about twenty-five colored lines is a diagram of my life. Gray is for vagueness. Everything, for me, has to be put in diagram or spatial form. The chart is a means of remembering. from A Diagram of My Life by Gerald Murnane [The Paris Review; ungated]
posted by chavenet (2 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
I think this is a lovely attempt at understanding oneself. I can see the appeal. But also, I think, for me, I would run the risk of...fossilising? my understanding of past me. What past me would have written about my late twenties is vastly different from what I would write about myself from that period today.

While I am very much a visual person, I am also a person that remembers more by narrative that chronologically. Date are of limited use to me.

Fascinating . Thanks for the link!
posted by chromecow at 1:30 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]


What past me would have written about my late twenties is vastly different from what I would write about myself from that period today.

It's funny you should say that, because a narrator writing about what his past self would have written about his past, and how that differs from what he would write if he were writing about his past today, is exactly the kind of thing I would expect to find in a Gerald Murnane book.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 5:00 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]


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