Yesterday, while reading Still Alice, I experienced something strange. I kept forgetting, whenever I put the book down, that I wasn't facing the same issues the character was.
That's happened once or twice in the past, and it's always very odd. For instance, while reading Around the World in Eighty Days, when I took a break, I kept feeling an odd urge to hurry, like I had limited time. When I tried to figure out why, I realised that it wasn't me in a hurry, it was Phileas Fogg and Passepartout. Likewise, here, it wasn't me with early-onset Alzheimers, it wasn't really me feeling confused and dazed, it was Alice. And Terry Pratchett.
It may have been because I was very tired yesterday, or simply because I was into the book. I don't know.
Still Alice, Lisa Geneva's debut novel, is about a Harvard Professor, Alice, who finds herself with early-onset Alzheimers. It's told in the third person, but mostly through Alice's viewpoint, and is the only book to have the stamp of approval of the Alzheimers Association.
My great grandmother had alzheimers. Not early-onset, she was in her eighties. I didn't know her very well, but I do know that it was a form with genetic causes. In another twenty years or so, we'll find out if my grandfather inherited it. Twenty years after that, whether my mother does. And so on. It's not something that I spent too much time thinking about, most of the time, but now I wonder, about my great grandmother. I think I understand a bit more of what it was like, and I wonder what life was like for her when she was young.
Another train of thought lead to me wondering about miracle cures. I knew Alice was going to get worse, that there is no cure for alzheimers. In novels about cancer patients, there is doubt, there is a chance. People do beat cancer sometimes. No one's ever beaten alzheimers. I don't believe anyone would write a story about beating it until someone actually does. And then, once they have, once it becomes commonplace, no one will want to write about it then, either. It seems to be that there will only be a very small window for books about beating alzheimers.
Another thought occurs to me now. The curse Yuri faces in Shadow Hearts: Covenant, of losing his soul, and forgetting everyone he'd ever loved. He chose to die instead.
That's happened once or twice in the past, and it's always very odd. For instance, while reading Around the World in Eighty Days, when I took a break, I kept feeling an odd urge to hurry, like I had limited time. When I tried to figure out why, I realised that it wasn't me in a hurry, it was Phileas Fogg and Passepartout. Likewise, here, it wasn't me with early-onset Alzheimers, it wasn't really me feeling confused and dazed, it was Alice. And Terry Pratchett.
It may have been because I was very tired yesterday, or simply because I was into the book. I don't know.
Still Alice, Lisa Geneva's debut novel, is about a Harvard Professor, Alice, who finds herself with early-onset Alzheimers. It's told in the third person, but mostly through Alice's viewpoint, and is the only book to have the stamp of approval of the Alzheimers Association.
My great grandmother had alzheimers. Not early-onset, she was in her eighties. I didn't know her very well, but I do know that it was a form with genetic causes. In another twenty years or so, we'll find out if my grandfather inherited it. Twenty years after that, whether my mother does. And so on. It's not something that I spent too much time thinking about, most of the time, but now I wonder, about my great grandmother. I think I understand a bit more of what it was like, and I wonder what life was like for her when she was young.
Another train of thought lead to me wondering about miracle cures. I knew Alice was going to get worse, that there is no cure for alzheimers. In novels about cancer patients, there is doubt, there is a chance. People do beat cancer sometimes. No one's ever beaten alzheimers. I don't believe anyone would write a story about beating it until someone actually does. And then, once they have, once it becomes commonplace, no one will want to write about it then, either. It seems to be that there will only be a very small window for books about beating alzheimers.
Another thought occurs to me now. The curse Yuri faces in Shadow Hearts: Covenant, of losing his soul, and forgetting everyone he'd ever loved. He chose to die instead.
