Fiona Webster (melusina) - , reviewed on 1/6/2009 + 32 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Not a review really, just a Pendergastian thing I find quite interesting... Preston and Child make use of a concept that has become increasingly well-known in the last few decades--the "memory palace." In the mid-80s Jonathan Spence wrote a book titled The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, a nonfiction account of the life of Matteo Ricci (1552-1616), an Italian Jesuit who went to China to spread Catholicism in the largely Confucian country. In order to persuade the educated Chinese to abandon their traditional faith for the new one he was carrying, Ricci realized he'd have to do something to convince the Chinese that Western culture was superior. So he taught young Confucian scholars tricks to increase their memory skills--a big advantage given the countless laws and rituals they had to learn by heart. Ricci got a lot of students; more important, Ricci came to have a sympathetic understanding for China that he communicated to Rome, and thence to the European nations at large.

Terrific, eh? Or else you're thinking, "What does this have to do with Still Life with Crows?" With no further ado, then, here is Agent Aloysius Pendergast explaining his own memory palace:

"It is a mental exercise, a kind of memory training, that goes back at least as far as the ancient Greek poet Simonides. It was refined by Matteo Ricci in the late 15th century, when he taught the technique to Chinese scholars. I perform a similar form of mental concentration, one of my own devising, which combines the memory palace with elements of Chongg Ran, an ancient Bhutanese form of meditation. I call my technique a memory crossing. . . through intence research, followed by intense concentration, I attempt to recreate, in my mind, a particular place at a particular time in the past. . . It gives me a perspective obtainable in no other way. It fills in gaps, missing bits of data, that otherwise would not even be perceived as gaps. And it is frequently in these very gaps that crucial information lies."

What's cool about all this, for Pendergast fans, is that our dear albino aristocrat uses this memory-palace technique again and again in subsequent books, and it's fascinating the way Preston and Child write their way ever deeper into Aloysius's mind. It's such a vague, elusive notion, but P and C make it come alive, make it become an almost tangible part of each investigation--especially those having to do with Diogenes, and their joint childhood.

Now... are you, by any chance, thinking, "Where have I read of this memory palace before? And it wasn't in a Preston-Child book, either!" You're right. You *have* read about it. Thomas Harris used Matteo Ricci's memory palace in Hannibal, in which he gives Hannibal Lecter, flourishing in Florence at the time, a lush and well-appointed (would Hannibal stand for anything less?) memory palace of his very own. For my money, Harris does a better job of describing what a memory palace is used for, and what such a place might look like, but Preston and Child run away with the prize when it comes to developing the concept, through a series of adventures/books, into a superlative tool for accomplishments of the mind--e.g., detective work. (Or does it ultimately devolve into psychoanalytic work? Your call.)

At any rate, it's a small bit in Still Life with Crows--which is excellent on so many other levels you don't need me to tell you--but it is worth noting for the further unfolding of the tale of Agent Pendergast.

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