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Rating:  Summary: Geez! Review: I am still not finished because I don't want this book to end. Whoever said that whatever happened to your brain would affect your writing was "bent". Having had a tumor removed and having had my brain damaged to save my life, I am relating like crazy (bad use of words....another problem). Read,"Bed/Time/Story" years ago. This surpasses even the brilliance of that. My step-brother, Robbie Schary Wollin, knew and was distantly related to you, so I was struck by the face which stared out at me from the cover and how much it resembled his family. I now am going to get something wonderful and sweet from the cupboard, a piece of paper towel to keep the sugar from schmutzing up my outfit, and am going to finish your book, damn it. One thing: with what memory I have I will hopefully be able to read this wonder of language again....because I will forget the feelings it arose in me and once again introduced me to a woman of uncommon valor.
Rating:  Summary: I really wanted to like it... Review: I DID like the idea. How terrifying to lose your memory and how amazing to go through the process of getting it back! But it was very bizarre, and rather irritating, that what Ms. Robinson remembered best were the bygone days in Hollywood of her famous family and friends. The intriguing topics of not remembering what her relationships with her kids were like, forgetting that family members had passed away, etc. were just barely touched upon. I don't like to read Hollywood tales, and those are what seem most important in this memoir. I waffled over 2 stars or 3 stars for my rating... I decided on 3 only because I liked and admired her loyal husband so much.
Rating:  Summary: "I couldn't taste the name" Review: I was hooked on this book from the opening sentence. As a writer, the thought of losing my memory is terrifying; this chronicle of regaining one's most personal and valuable possession moved me beyond the realm of mere words. And that one apparently simple line -- "I couldn't taste the name" (of a soup) -- fills me with the worst kind of professional envy. Sure, there's some "self-indulgent stuff" in the book; but who can blame a writer for flexing her skills or a person who has come back from such a staggering blow for indulging herself? On the whole, however, this is a remarkably restrained piece of work. Jill Robinson deserves nothing but praise for "Past Forgetting."
Rating:  Summary: A dazzling kalediscope of memory lost and found. Review: Jill Robinson is blessed with an elegant, original prose style, and a life story that gives it wing in Past Forgetting. This is an amazingly original autobiography which takes the reader into the heart and brain of its subject as she struggles to recover memory, and in the process reclaims a fascinating life which began in Hollywood as daughter of MGM head Dore Schary, where she deveoped her writer's eye for the telling detail. What for others would have been a catastrophic event: the siezure which caused a brain storm and severe memory loss, is in her hands a deeply intelligent and entertaining tale of life and memory recaptured. It is also a rare love story of a husband's devotion, and of a woman's courage.
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