In the Memory House recalls what American society has forgotten--the land, its people, and its ideals. By examining what we choose to remember, this important book reveals how progress has created absences in our landscapes and in our lives.
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In the Memory House recalls what American society has forgotten--the land, its people, and its ideals. By examining what we choose to remember, this important book reveals how progress has created absences in our landscapes and in our lives.
Read Less
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Seller's Description:
VG Hardback in VG DJ. Mansfield meanders through New England's small historical museums, peers into town meetings, In those days before the. Great War it had not yet becomes a matter of indifference whether a man lived or died. When fire had eaten away a gap in a row of houses, the burnt-out space remained long empty. Masons worked slowly and cautiously. Close neighbors and casual passers-by alike. Everything that gr3ew took a long time in growing and everything that was destroyed took a long time to be forgotten. Amd everuthimg that was once existed left its traeces so that in those days people lived on memories jusx as now they live by theccapacity to forget quickly and completely. I live in a corner of New Hampshire that travel writrs call "The Currier Ives Corner" Their stories use the smea words in the same oreer villeges are "charming" and "quaint" and always nestle in the valleys. The writers seee white epicket fences where there aren't any and allchildren are "happy children" and sometimes "happy apple-checked children", not any New England that ever was. At the height of their popularity in the 1860s and 1870s, the Currier & Ives prints were already nosalgia. This is nostalgis for Nostalgia. Seizing upon such scenes-barefoot boys checker games by the woodstove-we have our hands on only the cheapest ornaments of history There was a man I loved to visit. He lived iin the home he gerw up in. He knew how many turtle eggs it took to make enoughmayonnaise to last the summer. His house is 200 years old. He told me the nails in his sisters' bedrooms that the nail heads in the wall would frost over.
Howard Mansfield so beautifully and eloquently describes our lust to once again revisit that small town feeling, when we could leave our doors open and perhaps just the screen doors latched while only the night airs entered everyone?s home. Where every town had their native sons. The prejudices that encompass the small towns and the newcomers who gently steered those wrongs into glorious rights?Mitzvahs indeed! This is truly a poetic work of the utmost proportion. Mansfield is a master craftsman whose words force us to relive those wonderful memories of a proud community and togetherness that have long since disappeared from our country?s landscape. Mansfield is Hancock, New Hampshire's Myer Goldman. There is no doubt this work is beyond brilliant, there is no doubt Mansfield is a genius and there is no doubt this book is his Mitzvah! Definitely a book to read, to have, and hold on to!
