
Theories of Forgetting
Lance Olsen(Author)
Fiction Collective Two (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 28. February 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-57366-179-9 (ISBN)
Description
Theories of Forgetting is concerned with how words matter, the materiality of the page, and how a literary work might react against mass reproduction and textual disembodiment in the digital age.
Theories of Forgetting is a narrative in three parts. The first is the story of Alana, a filmmaker struggling to complete a short documentary about Robert Smithson's famous earthwork, The Spiral Jetty, located where the Great Salt Lake meets the desert. Alana falls victim to a pandemic called The Frost, whose symptoms include an increasing sensation of coldness and growing amnesia. The second involves Alana's husband, Hugh, owner of a rare-and-used bookstore in Salt Lake City, and his slow disappearance across Jordan while on a trip both to remember and to forget Alana's death. The third involves marginalia added to Hugh's section by his daughter, Aila, an art critic living in Berlin. Aila discovers a manuscript by her father after his disappearance and tries to make sense of it by means of a one-sided "dialogue" with her brother, Lance.
Each page of the novel is divided in half. Alana's narrative runs across the top of the page, from back to front, while Hugh's and his daughter's tale runs "upside down" across the bottom of the page, from front to back. How a reader initially happens to pick up Theories of Forgetting determines which narrative is read first, and thereby establishing the reader's meaning-making of the novel.
Theories of Forgetting is a narrative in three parts. The first is the story of Alana, a filmmaker struggling to complete a short documentary about Robert Smithson's famous earthwork, The Spiral Jetty, located where the Great Salt Lake meets the desert. Alana falls victim to a pandemic called The Frost, whose symptoms include an increasing sensation of coldness and growing amnesia. The second involves Alana's husband, Hugh, owner of a rare-and-used bookstore in Salt Lake City, and his slow disappearance across Jordan while on a trip both to remember and to forget Alana's death. The third involves marginalia added to Hugh's section by his daughter, Aila, an art critic living in Berlin. Aila discovers a manuscript by her father after his disappearance and tries to make sense of it by means of a one-sided "dialogue" with her brother, Lance.
Each page of the novel is divided in half. Alana's narrative runs across the top of the page, from back to front, while Hugh's and his daughter's tale runs "upside down" across the bottom of the page, from front to back. How a reader initially happens to pick up Theories of Forgetting determines which narrative is read first, and thereby establishing the reader's meaning-making of the novel.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Normal
United States
Publishing group
The University of Alabama Press
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
524 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57366-179-9 (9781573661799)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Lance Olsen
Theories of Forgetting
E-Book
02/2014
1st Edition
University of Alabama Press
€48.99
Available for download
Person
Lance Olsen is the author of eleven novels, one hypertext, four critical studies, four fiction collections, and two textbooks about writing innovative fiction. He is the recipient of Guggenheim and N.E.A fellowships as well as the Berlin Prize and a Pushcart Prize. His short stories, essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, Village Voice, BOMB, and Best American Non-Required Reading. He teaches experimental narrative theory and practise at the University of Utah.