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boomt 's review for:
The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory
by A. R. Luria
Starting in the 1920's Luria began to study "S." a subject who had a seemingly limitless capacity to memorize numbers, words, nonsense sounds, etc. Once memorized, S can recall a list after years. Luria worked with S through the 20's and 30's to unlock the secrets of his remarkable ability, and also to understand the impact this talent had on his perception and understanding of the world and his personality and self-control. S has the rare condition of synesthesia by which experience is encoded in multiple sensory pathways. For him, sounds have distinct colors and visual imagery and the wrong music can clash with the taste of a meal. The visual images he forms are extremely vivid and particular and he memorizes lists by encoding each item into images which he stores on the fly. However, this faculty has its downside. S finds metaphor and abstract concepts extremely challenging. Poetry is almost inaccessible to him. He is confused by the clash and confusion vivid, unrelated images that arise when words are used with double meaning. His powerful visual imagination allowed him extraordinary control over autonomic responses such as body temperature, pulse and the like. But the boundary between the visual imagery of his imagination and reality was often be nebulous and he was prone to distraction that could border on split personality.
The Mind of a Mnemonist anticipates the later work of Oliver Sacks and is a short, rewarding book.
The Mind of a Mnemonist anticipates the later work of Oliver Sacks and is a short, rewarding book.