Doomsday

After reading the ending of Rick Moody’s “The Albertine Notes,” I wish I had something more to say than “wow!” At the end of this novella, I feel a bit disoriented and wonderfully shocked– just something I would imagine coming off of an Albertine high would feel like. This is mostly because of the non-linear form of storytelling Moody takes up in order to match the memories of the protagonist, Kevin Lee. The progression of the story reminds me of the movie “Memento” where the main character has lost the ability to create any new memories and, thus, resorts to tattooing notes on himself and avenging the misremembered murder of his wife several times. Memory is such an important aspect of our lives because, without it, we would have no way of even beginning to create a sense of self.

The issue of a loss of the sense of time is also very interesting in “The Albertine Notes” and makes this story just a little harder to grasp. At one point, Kevin Lee looks at his watch and says that he is amazed that Rolex-knockoff survived the electromagnetic impulse from the Blast. I wonder if  with the catastrophe, the sense of time among the survivors has changed to begin with because many timepieces and electronics that keep us in this fast paced world have been destroyed. Then, when Kevin Lee begins his addiction, this disparity between a “personal” time and the “real” time (which in and of itself is just a construct) evolves.

Finally, I really like the idea of Albertine as drug that can help us live and relive our memories while making us forget partly because it is such a beautiful paradox and partly because it is such a normal human desire. Living in the past is something we already do in order to keep ourselves from having to experience the Present. This drug seems possible in the not-so-distant future and this is just one aspect of this story that makes it a very good science fiction piece.