The problem with applying facts to paper comes when the paper appears some morning on the doorstep of your house of memory, like an orphan claiming kinship. You stand in doorway, inspecting the child, unable to deny the family resemblance. You listen to house joints shift. You notice the front walk is missing some bricks. You wonder if the roof needs patching.
In 1981, using a blank journal, I began documenting the books I read. So, for the last twenty-five years it’s all there. Anything before that can’t be vouched for.
This weekend I started entering the information into an Excel worksheet.
According to the journal, in 1981 I read Jude the Obscure. In 1982 I read The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
In June I reported here I read Hardy’s major novels when I was twenty and never touched them again. Now I’m discovering I read two of them when I was twenty-seven. So either I didn’t read them when I was twenty (and under the circumstances I’m remembering) or I did and reread them just a few years later. Either way, my Hardy story doesn’t hold up.
On at least one occasion, I’ve informed Martha I’ve never read a word of Douglas Adams. But I have proof I did read the Hitchhiker’s Guide in 1982.
I haven’t been lying, but there’s no getting around the fact of a faulty memory.
Whenever I hear a public official tell an investigating panel they have no recollection of a specific incident I figure they’re liars. In the future I’ll have to be a little kinder.