Where the Past Begins: Memory and Imagination

by Amy Tan

But in writing fiction, the truth I seek is not a factual or scientific truth. It has to do with human nature, which is tied to my nature. It is about those things that are not apparent on the surface. When I set out to write a story, I am feeling my way through a question, often a moral one, and attempting to find a way to capture all its facets and conundrums. I don’t want an absolute answer. When writing fiction, I am trying to put down what feels true. Even

journal that I was like a sea anemone that retracted when poked and was unable to differentiate

I read an article today on the findings of a study on visual imagery, which gave me an insight on why I like to both draw and write. MRI imaging was done on the brains of twenty-one art students and twenty-four nonartists as they drew a likeness of an object before them. The findings showed that the artists’ brains were clearly different, the most interesting being a greater density of gray matter in the precuneus of the parietal lobe, where visual mental imagery is processed. The researchers said no conclusions could be drawn as to whether the extra padding of gray matter was present at birth. But, if that was the case, it would suggest that some degree of artistic skills are innate. The scientists affirmed that exposure to art activities most certainly plays a role, as does the “environment”—for example, having an art teacher who says you have a good imagination. So now I wonder: Did my drawing proclivities in childhood increase my aptitude for the visual and emotional imagery I would later use in my writing? If I draw a bird a day, can I increase the gray matter in the precuneus and further enrich my metaphoric brain? With age, the normal brain loses cells at a faster clip, taking with it the names of common gizmos, the items you were supposed to buy the next time you were at the pharmacy, and the best way to get from your house to that place where you’re going to do the you-know and that’s why you can’t be late. I would like to sock away extra stores of gray matter for...

like pouring oil over a boat to keep Somali pirates from getting on board.”

The process of writing is the painful recovery of things that are lost.

And then, about fifteen years ago, I fell in love with Rachmaninoff’s music. I found it hard to believe I had ever found fault with it. Age probably had much to do with my changing musical tastes. Over the years, I’ve accumulated plenty to reflect on: chest-ripping joy, strange fortune, disembowelment by betrayal, and love cratered deeper by the loss of far too many, including my mother. Rachmaninoff’s music has become a wonderfully sympathetic companion. My fingers remain still. I am the listener, ready to take the emotional path into a story. I used to think that everyone saw stories in music. But when I learned this was not true, it was like discovering that people don’t see a story when they read words, that it is only mental understanding. I’m not saying that music should contain story narratives. It’s more that I can’t stop them from emerging freely, which, sad to say, is not what normally happens when I write novels. Writing requires conscious crafting, and the more conscious I am of how I write, the clumsier my sentences come out. The more effort I expend, the less imagination is available. In contrast, when I experience stories in music, it’s effortless—and that’s because I am not composing. I’m simply the listener, and through my imagination I can wander far into a field of sound. The experience is fun, even exhilarating, but I could never use either the process or the output for a novel. My imagination is oblivious to craftsmanship and focus. The story may have ...

Music as muse in her writing.

process that is significant to me as a writer: in heightened situations, the vagus nerve releases a hormone, norepinephrine, into the part of the brain known as the amygdala, where the strongest emotional memories and their original reactions are stored. The more fearful the experience the greater the surge of norepinephrine into the amygdala, and that increases the amygdala’s ability to store vivid, more strongly felt, lasting memories. They are called visceral reactions for a reason: the viscera react subconsciously when memory of the traumatic moment rises, often unexpectedly. For assault victims, the popped balloon instantly brings back the moment they were shot. This is not where you’ll find happy memories of birthday parties or trips to the zoo—unless the birthday cake exploded and the lion escaped the cage and ate your ear. In the amygdala reside the horror stories of our lives: the worst experiences we’ve had. This is memory lane for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.

have a sense of my life as a percentage of what has been used and what is likely left. And I get impatient now when I waste time trying to find lost things, or doing mundane chores, when I dwell on the unpleasant, when I give my mind to it. So I will kill those moments—banish them—and try to find the moments that can be relived.

music had been scored for the themes of his diaries, it would begin with a sweet hymn for two bars before being drowned out by Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.” Those two songs, set to repeat.

I have never read an analysis of my work or me that reads as accurate. It’s because they start off on the wrong path, have created the map and thereby see only those points and conclusions. There is no symbolic immortality to be had in giving one’s archives to a library. It’s perpetual misinterpretation. Who I was will have been missing since before I stepped off Earth’s floor.

I am the author of this novel, which is told by a first-person narrator, who is not me, as one particular reviewer suggested is the case. For one thing, I am not half-Alsatian, half-Cherokee. My mother is from Lichtenstein, my father from China. And I have not been married four times, only twice. I have sons not daughters, cats not dogs, a house on the seaside not the lakeside. And I do not smoke or take Ecstasy. But in a deeper sense, the story itself is me, because its circular narrative drive, historical themes, and mythical imagery embody my patterns of thought and my obsessions with the past. But I am not the first-person narrator. I am the author who determined the voice of the narrator, which, by extension, is the voice of the entire narrative. By voice, I am not talking about voice quality—melodious, hoarse, foreign-accented, and so forth. Voice has more to do with a character’s subconscious running over her conscious self, and her observations as that happens. The narrator unfolds the story naturally and seamlessly—however, to make that appear so, I have to use contrivance in an artful way, which is more difficult than the result would suggest. The voice also has to do with how much she recognizes herself as the story progresses. It is a cliché to have a narrator be completely oblivious to what the plot will turn on. So, by voice, I mean more the mind of the character and her identity, how she perceives herself in the world she inhabits, and not what kind of job s...