I Remember

The book I Remember is based on a very simple premise. It is a series of statements which begin with the words “I remember”, and across its many pages, the author recalls many little things from throughout their lives. He might say things like:

• I remember when a kid told me that those sour clover-like leaves we used to eat (with little yellow flowers) tasted so sour because dogs peed on them. I remember that didn’t stop me from eating them.
• I remember the first drawing I remember doing. It was of a bride with a very long train.
• I remember my first cigarette. It was a Kent. Up on a hill. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. With Ron Padgett.

Typically, what he’s remembering are autobiographical details, not historical events. Instead, it’s very much focused on personal experiences from his life. As such, it is a very unusual book which examines interesting notions of what one sees as an important or memorable thing. So, because they’re autobiographical events, the fact that the author has chosen to make the statement as something they remember indicates its importance to them. Such a book might seem boring to read or uninteresting for a general audience. However, this book became immensely popular, even though it was basically written for the author himself and was followed by two sequels because it had sold so well. The author, Joe Brainard was an artist. In his artwork he often used techniques such as collage and assemblage, and I think this is reflected in this style of writing.

O’Brien (2023) classifies this as a new type of book and notes its influence. The idea of reflecting upon one’s life with a series of statements is quite powerful. You don’t have to go into detail, just simple one or two sentence phrases are used for each memory. It is easy for people of from about the age of seven through to the end of their lives to write in this format. As such, it has been used for people with dementia to see what they recall, but the beauty of the simplicity of it, means it’s also been used with people who just want to reflect upon their life and talk through changes that they’ve observed in what people do or how they experience things. Something as simple as “I remember my mother collecting the tallow from a lamb roast,” which is not something that many would do today can give a poignancy to the memory as it recalls a bygone era. The book makes you think about what little recollections you might put in your own version of it, and this is the true brilliance of the book – it is inspirational. It provides motivation to produce a similar text of their own. If you have old photo albums you could add photos or even illustrate it when no such image was captured. Nowadays you could even have AI draw or synthesized and image based on photos you’ve fed it as source material.

What strikes me is just how much I want to respond to each statement with, I remember that too! or I don’t remember that. That simple statement of, I don’t have a memory like that, is absolutely fascinating in terms of what it can trigger in yourself, when you realise how much life has shifted within a generation. It does make me think, what would I include in a book like that which I wrote? “I remember climbing the giant tree that was in the school playground.” That tree doesn’t exist anymore, but it was a regular part of my childhood. If I included a photo, people who grew up around me would no doubt have the same thought and the same sense of nostalgia about that tree not being there for kids of this generation to play in. I might have a statement such as, “I remember my family usually having an argument in the car before we’d left the driveway” or “I remember how important it was for my family to celebrate birthdays” or “I remember cuddling up to my dogs as a child”. Such things give an insight into the individual making the statements, but as a collective they also mean a lot for the author. Reading your own collection of memories becomes a very potent exercise in nostalgia. However, through triggering the same memories repeatedly, it strengthens them too. So your own version of I Remember, can be used to identify what memories a person wants to hold on to and provide a means for them achieving it. And so this book, which was never meant to be a best seller and was certainly not meant to have multiple sequels, and was not meant to inspire a movement whereby people were encouraged to write their own version of the book, has become something quite profound and significant. That is why it is a great moment in literature.

This post is part of my Great Moments in Literature series. To make sure you don’t miss the next Great Moment in Literature, please subscribe to my mailing list below.

O’Brien, G (2023) Joe Brainard’s Communal Intimacy https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/04/20/joe-brainards-communal-intimacy-the-art-of-the-personal/