Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia in Prince
George.

What is a writer’s notebook? It is not a diary, or lists of ideas, or
rough drafts. Indeed, I have no idea if there really is such an animal.
What Findley presents us with is a written quilt of sorts, pieces that
have been gathered from sundry places and sewn together: “raw”
journal and notebook material, previously published nonfiction pieces,
and links and set pieces written expressly to bind this quilt together.
The book is neither a memoir nor an autobiography. It is, however,
thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable at all times.

The first of its 11 sections, “Remembrance,” is about the act of
looking back and bringing the dead past to life again. It is an attempt
(not particularly successful) at giving a thematic unity to the book.
The device was not necessary, since the book has another kind of unity:
the unity of being about the life experience of a single person.
“Remembrance” is followed by a section on Findley’s life as an
actor, sections on the times associated with each of his books, and a
last section, “Inside Memory,” that remembers dead friends including
Ken Adachi, Margaret Laurence, and Marian Engel. The book ends with
“My Final Hour,” the text of a speech in which he gets to deliver
his own eulogy.

Inside Memory will be a gold mine for students of Findley as they seek
answers to what he was dealing with or thinking about at the times he
was writing each of his books. Naturally, scholars should be suspicious
of such a document. It does not have the raw honesty of a private
journal or diary that was never intended for prying eyes; it displays
instead the controlled honesty of a writer who is shaping his memories
in an effort to shape his readers’ memories of him.