August 18, 2007

"Mem, Mem, Mem." After a stroke, a prolific novelist struggles to say how the mental world of aphasia looks and feels. [Via ectoplasmosis.]
  • Exactly the same thing happened to me. Apart from the bit about being a famous writer & poet.
  • This is a great link, and very sad. My great-grandmother had aphasia after several strokes and it was so hard to see her frustration when she struggled to say something and could only produce random syllables.
  • velvetrabbit's link about Edwyn Collins from earlier this week is interesting in this context.
  • Great link and inspiring story. He sounds like someone interesting to talk to, and the process of his writing while coping with aphasia is compelling, but I just couldn't get into his new writing. All of his writing can be fairly opaque.
  • What an absolutely riveting read! I'm also reminded of my grandmother - she was in and out of it at the end. In one of her lucid moments she found out that my no-good cousin was in jail and insisted on dictating a letter to him. It read much like West's aphasic memoir.
  • Awesome!