Man Walks Into a Room Book

A Reader Walks into a Room

I bought "Man" after loving "The History of Love".

I don't think I realised until I started reading it that "Man" was her first novel.

There were times when I could understand why other readers might be tempted to give it up.

I persisted out of loyalty to "History" and out of a sense of anticipation for "Great House".

Little did I realise that it would (almost) have me in tears at the end.

Where Did My Character Go?

"Man" is not a novel of action.

Yet I don't think it's quite right to call it a novel of character either.

When we first meet Samson (Sam), he is devoid of character.

Sam's character isn't tested in the novel, it's reconstructed.

At age 36, he has lost 24 years of memory as a result of having a brain tumour removed.

I never understood how he could retain the memory of his first 12 years, but I assume that it's medically possible.

Ten of the lost years comprise the length of his relationship with his wife, Anna.

We know from the beginning that, by losing his memory, Sam will lose the wife he cannot remember.

In a sense, Man is about Sam's quest to regain his memory, his character, his humanity and his wife.

The action is the bare minimum required to dramatise this quest.

A Portrait by the Artist of a Young Man

The prose is dry and unadorned, yet it is so word perfect for its task that I can understand why some reviewers have called it poetic.

It's certainly not poetic in any flowery sense.

The best word I can think of to describe Nicole Krauss' achievement and writing style is "painterly".

She starts off with a blank canvas for Sam and creates a person we care dearly about, brush stroke by brush stroke.

To read every word is to witness every move of an artist.

For some, it would be tedious, for me, from about half-way through, it started to build towards a crescendo.

The more she painted, the more she joined the dots, the more we understood and appreciated Sam, the more we began to hope for him.

The more we hoped he could complete his biggest project, himself.

How Do You Know When You've Finished the Painting?

Different readers will predict different endings. I don't want to spoil the fun.

The rank sentimentalist in me would have been content (happy?) with any of the predictable endings.

And I was.

Could You Please Just Refresh My Memory, Please?

Memory is a powerful subject matter and metaphor in the novel.

Without it, we are nothing.

Without it, paradoxically, we can't even say we are lonely.

We can't really say we are lonely, if we don't know what we are and what we are not.

Memory is our way of storing perceptions and details about others.

By defining others, we define our selves.

Then as we grow and change, memory becomes a repository of former selves, our past, our history.

Memory constitutes our humanity, our civilisation.

Without it, we would just be unconscious components of nature, just one of the elements, what Krauss frequently describes as the "weather".

By losing his memory and forgetting, Sam becomes alienated from others.

He loses his marriage because he has literally forgotten Anna.

The rest of us lose our relationships because we forget to love each other.

A Remembrance of Things Past

The most pivotal action in the novel revolves around an idealistic scientist's experiment with Sam.

He hopes to prove that he can immunise people against alienation by creating a vast library of human memory.

Ultimately, Krauss makes us realise that happiness doesn't come from scientific endeavours like this.

It comes only from something intensely personal, slower and more painstaking.

"Man Walks Into a Room" requires a lot of effort on the part of the reader, but so in a way does life.