Lewis Hyde and Norman Fischer
Past Event
October 18,2019
~Co-presented by Point Reyes Books~
Join us for a conversation between Mesa Refuge Alum Lewis Hyde, author of the classic works of nonfiction The Gift; Trickster Makes This World; and—most recently—A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, with poet and Zen priest Norman Fischer. No registration necessary; event is free.
About A Primer for Forgetting
We live in a culture that prizes memory—how much we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our life while fighting off the nightmare of losing all that we have experienced. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear—be it in the form of illness or simple absentmindedness—but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth?
A Primer for Forgetting is a remarkable experiment in scholarship, autobiography, and social criticism by the author of the classics The Gift and Trickster Makes This World. It forges a new vision of forgetfulness by assembling fragments of art and writing from the ancient world to the modern, weighing the potential boons forgetfulness might offer the present moment as a creative and political force. It also turns inward, using the author’s own life and memory as a canvas upon which to extol the virtues of a concept too long taken as an evil.
Drawing material from Hesiod to Jorge Luis Borges to Elizabeth Bishop to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from myths and legends to very real and recent traumas both personal and historical, A Primer for Forgetting is a unique and remarkable synthesis that only Lewis Hyde could have produced.
About Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde is the author of Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, and a book of poems, This Error Is the Sign of Love. He is Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College.
About Norman Fischer
Norman Fischer is a poet, author, and Zen Buddhist teacher and priest. His latest book is The World Could be Otherwise.