This isn't really a post about the election or the novel, but I've been reading The Bourne Identity on this trip to the US and have found it interesting--it's a good read, but what sticks in my mind particularly about the story has to do with how it relates to memory, knowledge and meaning. "Bourne" finds himself able to remember all kinds of very specific things--names of hotels, banks, French, and he knows them without knowing he knows, kind of like the way you try to retrieve the name of a movie or actor or book and find you can't, only to find yourself moments later blurting out the name, almost like your mouth knew it and your brain was somehow in the way.
I wonder if my iPhone is experiencing any similar disjunctures. We are traveling and can't get cellular service, so we have to rely on wifi even for texting.
I spent a month here in Philadelphia in Sept of 2015, and I find that texts from my wife will suddenly ping at me as I walk by Toast restaurant or the bookstore. I'll stop and think, "why did that work now?" and have to cast my mind back to September, try to reconstruct what was going on..."did I stop here for coffee? Is this that little place I had lunch? What's going on?"
It also puts me in mind of Light in August by Wm Faulker: "memory knows before knowing remembers...." I could Google the whole passage, but I'd need wifi
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