Comparing Mirek's The Book Of Laughter And

The setting of a memory serves as its center, and images can return people to this setting. Proximity to where a memory takes place, and the time that has passed since the actual moment, determine whether the recollection is to endure. For example, moving away from one’s hometown may cause the memories of childhood to fade after years of living elsewhere. On the other hand, revisiting a place induces the remembrance of events that happened there. If space can cause both remembering and forgetting, time tends to lean towards forgetting since the images of the past become fuzzy over the years. The effects of both time and space to memory are illustrated in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

This is because the story utilizes Clementis’ hat as a motif for memories that still endure even if there are actions taken to erase them. Mirek’s work is focused on preserving memories of the Russian occupation because he wants to be remembered “Just as Clementis’s hat stayed on Gottwald’s head”. However, Zdena also seeks to be remembered as a part of Mirek’s life, even if he wants to erase her. This shows how he desires to be remembered in communal memory; he wants to be remembered as a part of one thing and forgotten as a part of

Why? The letters serve as a device to go back in time and relive the memory. The same way that Gottwald’s photograph brings people back to the time when he made his speech, the words of the letters create an image that takes people to the past. They record the feelings of the writer, and just by reading the letters, Zdena had been able to feel that back then, Mirek was “capable of such an explosion of feelings”. The phrase “explosion of feelings” is even repeated in the very next paragraph, giving emphasis to how Mirek’s letters show his emotion when he wrote them. When Mirek sees the white house, he gets reminded of how he would look at Zdena’s face, and “feels immense love”. The phrase “feels immense love” is repeated in the later paragraph. In the text, repetition is used to convey how strong a memory is when it resurfaces using images, formed through words, pictures, or by seeing a place, that return people to a memory’s time and place of origin. By somehow returning the person, the memories get more vivid and alive.

Similar to the Communist Party and Mirek, the characters of the embedded stories in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler also struggle with memories, both individual and communal. They have different intentions on what to do with memories of them, especially the collective ones. Some characters seek to erase or run away from their memories, and there are also those who are haunted, or are about to be, by their