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86th out of 100 books
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41 voters
The Memory Chalet
by
Tony Judt
The Memory Chalet is a memoir unlike any you have ever read before. Each essay charts some experience or remembrance of the past through the sieve of Tony Judt s prodigious mind. His youthful love of a particular London bus route evolves into a reflection on public civility and interwar urban planning. Memories of the 1968 student riots of Paris meander through the diverge...more
Hardcover, 226 pages
Published
November 11th 2010
by Penguin Press HC, The
(first published 2010)
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This has to be one of the sadder books I’ve read. It’s not quite on the level of Memories of my Melancholy Whores , which I couldn’t even bear to finish, or quite the terror that 1984 was, and doesn’t have the anguish of End of the Affair. It was sad in a different way.
Tony Judt died last year of ALS, a degenerative disease that left him increasingly immobile- first just in fingers and toes, then entire arms and legs until he could not move at all. In the first essay of this collection, he matte...more
Tony Judt died last year of ALS, a degenerative disease that left him increasingly immobile- first just in fingers and toes, then entire arms and legs until he could not move at all. In the first essay of this collection, he matte...more
A moving, thought provoking book by a man in the final stages of a neurodegenerative disorder for whom roaming the corridors of his own mind is about the only pleasure left in life. But what wonderful reflections he leaves us as he wanders through the rooms of his personal memory chalet; thoughts about train travel, growing up in post war London, the British education system, an adolescent dalliance with Labour Zionism, life at Cambridge, revolution, living in New York, national identities versu...more
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Such a haunting and beautiful book by such a brilliant man.
While dying of ALS Judt envisions heaven as a train on which he rides continuously through the Alps. This evocative imagery has stayed with me and probably always will.
While becoming progressively “locked in” by ALS, Judt’s mind remains very much alive. He escapes into “the memory chalet,” a Swiss chalet he stayed in on holidays as a child. He recalls in his memory every room, nook and cranny, the smells, the food, the snow, the happy...more
While dying of ALS Judt envisions heaven as a train on which he rides continuously through the Alps. This evocative imagery has stayed with me and probably always will.
While becoming progressively “locked in” by ALS, Judt’s mind remains very much alive. He escapes into “the memory chalet,” a Swiss chalet he stayed in on holidays as a child. He recalls in his memory every room, nook and cranny, the smells, the food, the snow, the happy...more
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It's hard to separate the contents of this book from the circumstances in which it was written. Trapped in an increasingly immobile body, Judt composed stories (essays, really) at night to keep his mind occupied and to divert his attention from the fact that he simply couldn't move. That struggle to maintain sanity runs through the whole book and starts the whole thing off on a somber note.
And yet, I found myself frequently smiling and even laughing as I read this. This isn't a matter of a sacch...more
And yet, I found myself frequently smiling and even laughing as I read this. This isn't a matter of a sacch...more
A memoir by the late British historian and essayist Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet was written in the vein of French editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's The Diving Bell And The Butterfly: Judt suffered from motor neuron disease which trapped him- his mental capacity intact- in the prison of his own deteriorating body until he died two years after diagnosis, in the summer of 2010, at age 62.
The conceit of the book is Judt's employment of a mnemonic tool, the "memory palace", to invent and recall narrativ...more
The conceit of the book is Judt's employment of a mnemonic tool, the "memory palace", to invent and recall narrativ...more
a personal history of tony judt's moral and scholastic education. judt is/was arguably on of the most insightful historians in early 21st century, who died tragically young at 60. he is usa's very own intellectual (god knows we don;t have a whole lot of em' to flaunt around) in the tradition of french public intellectuals like bernard levy Public Enemies.
judt has his last book just out too Thinking the Twentieth Century
in "chalet" when he is talking about usa, living in usa, nyc etc, he is asked...more
judt has his last book just out too Thinking the Twentieth Century
in "chalet" when he is talking about usa, living in usa, nyc etc, he is asked...more
The Memory Chalet is an altogether different book, much more personal, definitely more literary, funny, moving and engaging—and it very likely will also speak to readers with no professional interest in politics or the social sciences. It is a memoir written in an unconventional style, that is to say not in a narrative biographical format, but in the form of associations to the ‘things’ that mattered in his life: food, cars, trains, work, love, women, midlife crisis, the sixties’ cultural revolu...more
series of autobiographical essays written (dictated) to pass the time while author was immobilized and awake most/all of the night as he died of ALS.
Hard to sort out what I would have thought of it if not told early on about the circumstances. He's definitely a good writer, and I'd probably have finished it anyway, but if you partial out feeling terrible for him I'm not sure the subjects or his take on them would have struck me as remarkable. post-WW II English people understood how and why to l...more
Hard to sort out what I would have thought of it if not told early on about the circumstances. He's definitely a good writer, and I'd probably have finished it anyway, but if you partial out feeling terrible for him I'm not sure the subjects or his take on them would have struck me as remarkable. post-WW II English people understood how and why to l...more
Goodreads' custom of using the text from the inside of the front hardcover dust-jacket as their summary goes awry here by leaving out a critical fact (which is on the back cover): Tony Judt wrote this book while in the terminal stages of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease), a neuro-degenerative disorder that progressively paralyses the sufferer's body while leaving the mind totally untouched. Most people who get it die within a couple of years, usually of suffocation, or of complications du...more
Jul 07, 2011
Jennifer
rated it
3 of 5 stars
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review of another edition
Shelves:
library-loan,
non-fiction
I have such mixed feelings about this book - but I am not sure whether some of those are not mixed feelings about my own motivations in choosing to read the book. He lays his cards on the table from the beginning, describing with a cool bitterness exactly what it means to have ALS. Judt's was an interesting life, shorter than it should have been, and he moves with ease between his secular Jewish upbringing in Putney, why he learned Czech, his time as a kibbutzim, driving across America and plent...more
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The Memory Chalet, by Tony Judt— Review also posted on http://www.jamesrament.com/book-revie...
Tony Judt, a British Jew educated at Cambridge and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, was a renowned scholar, historian, teacher, and intellectual. And he wrote this lucid memoir while dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He had to dictate much of the book, and the early descriptions of being a prisoner in his own body were straightforward and chilling...more
Tony Judt, a British Jew educated at Cambridge and the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, was a renowned scholar, historian, teacher, and intellectual. And he wrote this lucid memoir while dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He had to dictate much of the book, and the early descriptions of being a prisoner in his own body were straightforward and chilling...more
Tony Judt (1948-2010), one of the 21st century's leading public intellectuals, was born in postwar London to Jewish parents, educated at Cambridge and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and taught at several universities, most notably Cambridge, UC Berkeley and NYU. He wrote several acclaimed books on 20th century European history, including Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century and Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-195...more
This book, like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is an unusual memoir written by a man of accomplishment who has been felled by disease, in this case, ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. Tony Judt had written many books establishing him as an intellectual of powerful talent, when he wrote what he calls these essays fueled by memory. He gives the best account of life in post WWII London I've read in a long time, but I was particularly taken with his rumination on train travel and his love of going off...more
"Loss is loss," Judt writes, "and nothing is gained by calling it a nicer name." Many of these chronological essays written while Judt struggled with ALS first appeared in the New York Review of Books, but taken together, they offer an astute portrait of a life cut short -- but one also fully, richly lived. Judt writes with the same incisive intellectual clarity and polished writing of his other books, here evoking specific experiences formative to his childhood and intellectual growth. Yet, as...more
This book is a collection of essays, most previously published in literary magazines and published posthumously as a book. Tony Judt was an academic and a historian and died in 2010 of ALS. During the last year of his life, he had no control of his muscles and was forced to rely on nurses to move him, feed him and dress him. At night, he was put to bed in the most comfortable position but then had to lie there and could not move at all even to scratch an itch. Since he was mostly unable to sleep...more
I'm glad I read Tony Judt's memoir, but did find it a little disappointing. After the introduction, I found it easy to forget the circumstances in which the book was being written, and the 'memory chalet' mnemonic technique, which were really the most fascinating and moving aspects of the book and which had drawn me to it. The book featured memories but didn't explore memory as much as I expected. Having said that, the 'feuilletons' were interesting, and Judt strung a diverse range of intellectu...more
Just starting...Ok, its probably not for your everyday reader but what an utterly fantastic, thoughtful, eloquent thought provoking small book with a world of experience behind it. Tony Judt dies in Aug, 2010 of ALS. He began as a middle class brit who became an Oxford don, went on to teach, live and write in Vienna, New York, Paris and London. Spent his youth summers in a budding Israel during the 1967 War and had the intellectual honesty to critisize the Kibbutz system of collectivization, Fra...more
Judt's tragic death from Lou Gehrig's disease was preceded by its horrifying symptoms--a creeping paralysis which makes movement and then communication impossible. While he lay in bed each night, unable to move from his bed, Judt composed these wonderful essays in his head and then dictated them the next day. After having read both this and Ill Fares the Land, I can only say that if one must be trapped inside a mind--unimaginable as that is--I can think of few minds it would be better to be trap...more
So far I am having trouble mustering the interest. It is well written, but the nostalgia is lost on me. It is best appreciated by the generation before me, and especially those with a connection to England and Europe. The links of personal experience to how it fits in with the broader narrative and culture of England/Europe/world are not as strong or developed as I expected.
I'm not sure this memoir is quite as remarkable as the circumstances under which it was written, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
Tony Judt was a British-born historian and expert on Eastern Europe, and when he wrote this memoir, he already was largely incapacitated by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which meant he had to dictate it day by day. To organize his thoughts for each chapter, he would spend his evenings mentally situating them in different parts of a Swiss chalet that he fondly remembered...more
Tony Judt was a British-born historian and expert on Eastern Europe, and when he wrote this memoir, he already was largely incapacitated by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which meant he had to dictate it day by day. To organize his thoughts for each chapter, he would spend his evenings mentally situating them in different parts of a Swiss chalet that he fondly remembered...more
We cannot choose where we start out in life, but we may finish where we will. --Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet
If there was a book that was the antithesis of the schlock that Tuesdays with Morrie is, this would be it. This is a collection of essays that make up a memoir almost, written by Judt mostly as he battled ALS, becoming less able to control his body over time. This is a sad but beautiful book with stories of Judt's childhood in London, the experience of becoming slowly immobile, his family,...more
If there was a book that was the antithesis of the schlock that Tuesdays with Morrie is, this would be it. This is a collection of essays that make up a memoir almost, written by Judt mostly as he battled ALS, becoming less able to control his body over time. This is a sad but beautiful book with stories of Judt's childhood in London, the experience of becoming slowly immobile, his family,...more
"na de oorlog" was indrukwekkend, Judt is een integer en oordeelkundig historicus en beschouwer van zijn tijd, en wat hij als mens moest ondergaan in het laatste jaar van zijn leven, verlamd door ALS, is niet min. Maar een bepaald milieu heeft hem tot cultfiguur gebombardeerd, de laatste behoeder van de Europees geïnspireerde sociaaldemocratie, en dat is er voor mij teveel aan. In dit boek blikt Judt in verschillende episodes terug op zijn leven en dat blijkt toch niet zo bijster interessant. Hi...more
Tony Judt was a historian whose specialty was the twentieth century after World War II, renowned particularly for the book, Postwar. He died in August, 2010. Some years before he died, he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a nervous system disorder characterized by the progressive loss of muscular control. Over time, ALS sufferers lose the ability to walk, use their hands, speak, and ultimately, breathe. There is no accompanying deterioration of consciousness. Patients b...more
Loved it. Judt, the well-known historian of postwar Europe, wrote these pieces while he was dying of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) last year. Each night, lying immobile in the dark and unable to sleep, he composed essays in his head related to various moments of his life, which he then mentally deposited in the imagined rooms of his own “memory chalet” for retrieval in the morning. Upon waking, he dictated them to an assistant. The essays are short, lyrical, and analytical, on topics ranging from t...more
Each time Judt mentioned a woman, women, or his thoughts on sexual politics, my skin crawled. He does have excellent insights on American Judaism, especially in regard to the motivations for Holocaust remembrance. His main point seemed like a moderate version of Norman Finkelstein's basic thesis in The Holocaust Industry - surprising.
Judt's vantage point is that of a conservative socialist - something I've rarely encountered and don't know what to do with. It's a personal panacea that allows him...more
Judt's vantage point is that of a conservative socialist - something I've rarely encountered and don't know what to do with. It's a personal panacea that allows him...more
The Memory Chalet is a memoir unlike any you have ever read before. Each essay charts some experience or remembrance of the past through the sieve of Tony Judt s prodigious mind. His youthful love of a particular London bus route evolves into a reflection on public civility and interwar urban planning. Memories of the 1968 student riots of Paris meander through the divergent sex politics of Europe, before concluding that his generation was a revolutionary generation, but missed the revolution. A...more
Part memoir, part essay, part social history, this is a collection written by Tony Judt as he descended into ALS (he has since passed). There are some beautiful and heartbreaking passages here, though he touches on his disease remarkably little. He has one passage concerning the transition in life from when you’re still “becoming” to the interminable point of just being which was so profound I read it several times over. Yet, at its heart, this collection is oddly hopeful and always very wise. I...more
Well written memior of a man dying of ALS. Interesting essays on various points in his life. In some ways hard to follow because some of the essays were written for other things and repurposed here, so chronology can be a bit of a challenge to keep straight (not that it matters that much). I probably would have gotten more out of it had I grown up in his era or had any of the experiences he did in common, but still it was an interesting read. The first essay had a bit much of the woe is me (thou...more
Tony Judt's memory is fantastic; I couldn't hope to begin to recall the minutia from my childhood that he recalls in his. From boyhood through college and adulthood, Judt spins vignettes from his life that, while rarely action packed, are almost always interesting and sometimes fascinating.
While you might expect this from a writer of his renown, his achievement deserves extra praise for its degree of difficulty. He composed this book for over a year, trapped in his nearly paralyzed body by ALS,...more
While you might expect this from a writer of his renown, his achievement deserves extra praise for its degree of difficulty. He composed this book for over a year, trapped in his nearly paralyzed body by ALS,...more
I just knew this book would be special. How sadly disheartening that we can look forward to no new works from Tony Judt. He was a self-described "edge person": the "fierce unconditional loyalties -- to a country, a God, and idea, or a man" had come to terrify him. He saw that "the thin veneer of civilization rests upon an illusory faith in our common humanity." I especially liked the final piece on Switzerland, since like Judt I've always been strangely drawn to the country -- even though it's b...more
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Born in 1948, Tony Judt was raised in the East End of London by a mother whose parents had immigrated from Russia and a Belgian father who descended from a line of Lithuanian rabbis. Judt was educated at Emanuel School, before receiving a BA (1969) and PhD (1972) in history from the University of Cambridge.
Like many other Jewish parents living in postwar Europe, his mother and father were secular,...more
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Like many other Jewish parents living in postwar Europe, his mother and father were secular,...more
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“Undergraduates today can select from a swathe of identity studies.... The shortcoming of all these para-academic programs is not that they concentrate on a given ethnic or geographical minority; it is that they encourage members of that minority to study themselves - thereby simultaneously negating the goals of a liberal education and reinforcing the sectarian and ghetto mentalities they purport to undermine.”
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7 people liked it
“Love, it seems to me, is that condition in which one is most contentedly oneself. If this sounds paradoxical, remember Rilke’s admonition: love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which the self may flourish. As a child, I always felt uneasy and a little constrained around people, my family in particular. Solitude was bliss, but not easily obtained. Being always felt stressful- wherever I was there was something to do, someone to please, a duty to be completed, a role inadequately fulfilled: something amiss. Becoming, on the other hand, was relief. I was never so happy as when I was going somewhere on my own, and the longer it took to get there, the better. Walking was pleasurable, cycling enjoyable, bus journeys fun. But the train was very heaven.”
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