Funes the Memorious

Jerry Friedman · 27 Jan 2011, 18:23 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:23:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Funes the Memorious
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimxicSuaXqxx6sZ0FKf79ZtM8OwVdBxZ0owj5im at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTimxicSuaXqxx6sZ0FKf79ZtM8OwVdBxZ0owj5im at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <522093.89396.qm at web114711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

>From: Mr Thalassocrat thalassocrat08 at gmail.com
>
>A Borges story I hadn't read before, about a man with perfect memory: 
>http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/borges.htm

Maybe?you know that in addition to the surname "Funes", there's a Spanish
word "funesto" that means disastrous, ill-fated, and stuff like that.

>Nice to ponder on what use Wolfe might have made of it in constructing Sev. 

I feel sure he had it in mind.

>But perhaps Sev suffered from hyperthymesia, even though it seems to have been 
>defined as a condition only recently: 
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia?
>
>"1) the person spends an abnormally large amount of time thinking about his or 
>her personal past, and 2) the person has an extraordinary capacity to recall 
>specific events from his or her personal past."

:-)

Jerry Friedman

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