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After beholding the destruction of the Well-Built City, physiognomist Cley is now a simple healer seeking peace and atonement in the happy village of survivors. When the town falls into a deadly sleeping sickness, Cley must make a dangerous trip to the ruins of City - now beset by mechanical birds and werewolves - to seek out an antidote. The evil Master Below is still alive, but an accidental exposure to the sickness that he created has put him into a coma. With the help of Below's adopted demon son, found in the wreckage of the laboratory, Cley ventures into the mind and intricate memories of Below to search for a cure. Cley will encounter wonders and dangers undreamed of in the second instalment of this classic trilogy.
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In the years since completing a written account of the fall of the Well-Built City, which told of my personal transformation from Physiognomist to humble citizen and the inception of this once idyllic settlement of Wenau, I never again thought it would be necessary to put pen to paper, but after what has occurred in the past few weeks, I must warn my unsuspecting neighbors. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
In the years since completing a written account of the fall of the Well-Built City, which told of my personal transformation from Physiognomist to humble citizen and the inception of this once idyllic settlement of Wenau, I never again thought it would be necessary to put pen to paper, but after what has occurred in the past few weeks, I must warn my unsuspecting neighbors. Read the first page
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14 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Striking, original, beautiful fantasy about memory
24 Aug 2000
Format:Paperback
Jeffrey Ford's previous novel, The Physiognomy, won the 1998 World Fantasy Award. If The Physiognomy is as good as its successor, it's easy to see why it won that award. Memoranda is an extremely impressive novel, at times reminding me of Borges, at other times of John Crowley, and throughout striking and original. The bulk of the novel takes places in the strange memory palace, or memory island, that the villain Drachton Below has constructed. Unlike conventional memory palaces, Below has populated his island with his memories of real people, who have some form of independent life, and who conduct experiments. Thus, in a sense, the memory island is actually thinking for Below. The hero, the former Physiognomist Cley, makes a strange journey into Below's mind, and his memory palace, meeting the four people with whom Below has poulated his memory, and falling in love with the one remembered woman, Anotine. But the memory island is falling apart as disease ravages Below's mind, and Cley must enlist the help of the "residents" to try to save Below, and his memory, long enough at least to find the antidote to the disease.
This whole landscape is original, and odd, and often beautiful. The form and setting of the novel provoke thought about the nature of memory. Ford also considers the nature of love, and addiction, and how a wholly evil man can still engender good. The plot is interesting enough, and fairly well resolved, but it's a minor source of pleasure. The prose is very fine, with many excellent images. I found the names of drinks and drugs especially memorable: shudder, sheer beauty, Rose's Old Sweet, Tears in The River, and more. Some of the horrific images, such as the Delicate and the Fetch, creatures Below uses to control his memories, are also very memorable. The characters are nicely realized and affecting, particularly the lost demon Misrix.
Even though this is the middle book of a trilogy, it has a self-contained story that is finished in this volume. That said, you will want to read The Physiognomy once you've read this book, and so it would probably be best to read it first, in the order published. And while the central story of this book is concluded, Cley's life story is definitely left hanging at the end, and I for one eagerly anticipate the third volume, The Beyond.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
"Literary" fantasy is rarely this much fun.
10 Nov 1999
Format:Paperback
A rich and haunting tale--by turns horrifying,heartbreaking and hilarious, but always surprising. Ford is an eloquent tour guide of inner worlds; his vivid characters, thrilling journeys and impossible landscapes engage us with the startling elusive logic of dreams. A worthy successor to the excellent THE PHYSIOGNOMY, MEMORANDA stands on its own as a beautiful meditation on memory--that most familiar and mysterious inner world. Bravo!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Magical SurRealism
29 Nov 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers in fantasy-scifi who writes about ideas instead of events. If you like the pity and catharsis of authors like Hawthorne and Melville, the decadent symbolism of Poe, or the logical precision and impassive sadness of Kafka, then I highly recommend Ford as he is their contemporary successor. Those who criticize the plot and characterizations of The Physiognomy and Memoranda do so from misapprehensions regarding the appropriate style and substance of the allegorical genre of fiction which is not to be evaluated by the same criteria as the psychological realist school. Not because it is inferior, but because it is alien and has different goals.
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