This sensitively written long form of a medical/psychological case study is fascinating on its own just for the way Luria tries to present the life and effects thereon of this man's gift/curse. It has become a classic which I just re-read about in Benjamin Labatut's 'When We Cease to Understand the World' about the limits of human knowledge. I first read about it over 30 years ago in Oliver Sacks who was inspired to write HIS humanistic case histories directly from those of Luria. More intriguingly, Jorge Borges wrote a story 26 years before this was published that could have almost been about S. from Luria. Granted, Luria started studying him in the '20s and Borges was very clued into world events so... but I prefer to think it was just his sheer genius that let him imagine a reality he didn't even know existed outside his imagination. Camus wrote HIS book about 'The Plague' without living through one but his characters had the same reactions as those in Nazi concentration camps or the Soviet Gulags to the similar extremity of the situation. Genius stands out for a reason.
I must note however that a previous reviewer seems to have misunderstood how S. worked his magic. He had synesthesia, so saw sounds as images and remembered things visually like a photograph. This is some odd kind of birth defect (defect is apropos as it limited S. ability for non-concrete thinking & generalizing). It is not something he had to work at or try in any way. It came so naturally that he thought it was how everyone worked until he was in his '20s. In another review, it was claimed that S. 'used' the ancient 'Art of Memory' known at least since the ancient Romans and often ascribed to Cicero who mentioned it. The AoM did exist but was a laborious process that once mastered, could allow you to have almost perfect recall. First you had to spend hundreds (?) of hours building a visual picture of something like a Renaissance cathedral or Dante's Inferno with a lot of nooks & crannies to put stuff in that you wanted to remember. Then once that is firmly in mind, you can 'place' stuff in one of those nooks inyour memory castle in a graphic visual/symbolic manner when you want to remember it. Sounds incredibly laborious and difficult, no? But apparently with practice it can become almost second nature. The ancient Celtic bards used to memorize multiple books worth of songs and poems to qualify as a bard. And people all over the world still memorize the entire Koran in Arabic, even many who can't even really speak the language, as a spiritual exercise. What we consider almost magical feats of memory CAN be done, especially with old techniques, but they all have in common tons of work. S. did it against his will & actually had to work to forget stuff so he could move on. While there are similarities between S. synesthetic memory & the AoM's technique, the crucial difference is one did it automatically while the rest spent hours forcing themselves to do it until it almost became a habit. And S. had the added memory cues of how each word tasted/looked/felt/sounded as a memory cue. His extreme visual synesthesia allowed him to naturally or near automatically use the AoM techniques that others had to struggle and work at to achieve. Francis Yates' 'Giordano Bruno and the Art of Memory is a great intro to the AoM if you want to know more & maybe even try it yourself. Sounds like a pain without much benefit to me & still will not give you what S. had, which you should be grateful for.
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Delivery rates and Return policy The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, With a New Foreword by Jerome S. Bruner Paperback – Illustrated, 30 May 1987
by
A. R. Luria
(Author),
Lynn Solotaroff
(Translator)
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The Mind of a Mnemonist is a rare phenomenon-a scientific study that transcends its data and, in the manner of the best fictional literature, fashions a portrait of an unforgettable human being.
- ISBN-100674576225
- ISBN-13978-0674576223
- EditionRevised ed.
- Publication date30 May 1987
- LanguageEnglish
- Print length192 pages
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Review
A distinguished Soviet psychologist’s study…[of a] young man who was discovered to have a literally limitless memory and eventually became a professional mnemonist. Experiments and interviews over the years showed that his memory was based on synesthesia (turning sounds into vivid visual imagery), that he could forget anything only by an act of will, that he solved problems in a peculiar crablike fashion that worked, and that he was handicapped intellectually because he could not make discriminations, and because every abstraction and idea immediately dissolved into an image for him. It is all fascinating and delightful. ― New Yorker
Luria’s essay is a model of lucid presentation and is an altogether convincing description of a man whose whole personality and fate was conditioned by an intellectual idiosyncrasy. ― Times Literary Supplement
These two books [The Man with a Shattered World and The Mind of a Mnemonist] are compassionate and vivid portraits―he called them ‘neurological novels’―though they are in fact case histories of two patients whom Luria observed for 30 years. ― Los Angeles Times
A welcome re-issue of an English translation of Alexander Luria’s famous case-history of hypermnestic man. The study remains the classic paradigm of what Luria called ‘romantic science,’ a genre characterized by individual portraiture based on an assessment of operative psychological processes. The opening section analyses in some detail the subject’s extraordinary capacity for recall and demonstrates the association between the persistence of iconic memory and a highly developed synaesthesia. The remainder of the book deals with the subject’s construction of the world, his mental strengths and weaknesses, his control of behaviour and his personality. The result is a contribution to literature as well as to science. ― Psychological Medicine
The richness of clinical insight, the acuity of the observations, and the fullness of the overall picture of [Luria’s] mnemonist are all extraordinary… A perceptive study not only of memory organization but also of the manner in which memory is imbedded in a pattern of life. -- Jerome S. Bruner, from the Foreword to the First Edition (1967)
Originally published almost two decades ago, these fascinating and enormously informative case histories are now classics, each the product of almost 30 years of research by the late Soviet neuropsychologist Aleksandr Romanovich Luria… The Man with a Shattered World describes the heroic struggle of a young soldier trying to recover the memory and other mental capacities lost when a bullet entered his brain. Although different facets of mind are discussed in each [The Man with a Shattered World and The Mind of a Mnemonist], in a sense the two books are complementary, as memory is exaggerated in one and impaired in the other. What we know about the brain and mind is greatly enriched by either book. -- Elliot Valenstein ― Boston Globe
Luria’s essay is a model of lucid presentation and is an altogether convincing description of a man whose whole personality and fate was conditioned by an intellectual idiosyncrasy. ― Times Literary Supplement
These two books [The Man with a Shattered World and The Mind of a Mnemonist] are compassionate and vivid portraits―he called them ‘neurological novels’―though they are in fact case histories of two patients whom Luria observed for 30 years. ― Los Angeles Times
A welcome re-issue of an English translation of Alexander Luria’s famous case-history of hypermnestic man. The study remains the classic paradigm of what Luria called ‘romantic science,’ a genre characterized by individual portraiture based on an assessment of operative psychological processes. The opening section analyses in some detail the subject’s extraordinary capacity for recall and demonstrates the association between the persistence of iconic memory and a highly developed synaesthesia. The remainder of the book deals with the subject’s construction of the world, his mental strengths and weaknesses, his control of behaviour and his personality. The result is a contribution to literature as well as to science. ― Psychological Medicine
The richness of clinical insight, the acuity of the observations, and the fullness of the overall picture of [Luria’s] mnemonist are all extraordinary… A perceptive study not only of memory organization but also of the manner in which memory is imbedded in a pattern of life. -- Jerome S. Bruner, from the Foreword to the First Edition (1967)
Originally published almost two decades ago, these fascinating and enormously informative case histories are now classics, each the product of almost 30 years of research by the late Soviet neuropsychologist Aleksandr Romanovich Luria… The Man with a Shattered World describes the heroic struggle of a young soldier trying to recover the memory and other mental capacities lost when a bullet entered his brain. Although different facets of mind are discussed in each [The Man with a Shattered World and The Mind of a Mnemonist], in a sense the two books are complementary, as memory is exaggerated in one and impaired in the other. What we know about the brain and mind is greatly enriched by either book. -- Elliot Valenstein ― Boston Globe
About the Author
A. R. Luria was Professor of Psychology at Lomonosov Moscow State University.
Jerome Bruner was University Professor at New York University.
Jerome Bruner was University Professor at New York University.
Product details
- Language : English
- Paperback : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0674576225
- ISBN-13 : 978-0674576223
- Best Sellers Rank: 168,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 311 in Psychiatry
- 419 in Anxieties & Phobias
- 529 in Pathological Psychology
- Customer reviews:
Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
70 global ratings
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read for anyone who is interested in mnemonics!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 October 2021Verified Purchase
A wonderful read concerning an iconic figure in the world of memory. Luria's paints a very human picture of 'S', and his journey into the mind of his subject. 'S' also narrates his use of kinanesthesia and what we call these days - Memory Palaces, ie: loci, etc.
Bernard M. Patten
5.0 out of 5 stars
S. Used the Ancient Art of Memory
Reviewed in the United States on 17 December 2000Verified Purchase
In 1969, I first read this little book about a vast memory when I was the memory fellow at the Neurological Institute of New York. I read it again today. Both times I had the feeling that Luria actually did not know of the Ancient Art of Memory and was unfamiliar with the techniques and the history of the visual mnemonics that underlie the memory skills demonstrated by subject S. Else how could Luria think that S.'s visual mnemonic skills were particular to him and worthy of such careful detailed study? Any veteran of multiple courses on memory including that given by Harry Lorayne will immediately recognize the methods and the power of the systems discussed in this book. The visual images that work the best are large, colored, unusual, in motion, violent, and linked to material already known. That's how S. did it and that's how you can do it too. Want to be a memory genius? This book is a good start.
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Shane
4.0 out of 5 stars
Detailed Account of a Marvelous Mind.
Reviewed in the United States on 29 June 2013Verified Purchase
I read this account of a professional mnemonist, written by Dr. Luria, after reading "The Man with a Shattered World", also by Dr. Luria. "The Mind of the Mnemonist" is a fantastic account of a man who could remember everything and even had trouble trying to forget things. This book makes the reader aware of the potential of cognitive functionality, and even the possibility of improving your own memory. This book, paired with "The Man with a Shattered World, should be required reading for all.
3 people found this helpful
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