Memoir/Buried Memories By David Marcus: Memory, artifice, fiction, fact and truth are all concepts questioned and subverted in David Marcus's Buried Memories, writes Katrina Goldstone.
The first volume of Marcus's memoirs, Oughtobiography: Leaves from the Diary of a Hyphenated Jew was published in 2001 at the behest of his friends. In recognition of his pivotal and crucial role in discovering, encouraging and wet-nursing a generation of Irish literary talent, the cry went up: "You ought to write your autobiography, you really ought to." It is typical of Marcus's legendary self-effacement that he took some persuading. For, despite his modesty, it is clear his influence on Irish writers and Irish writing is incalculable.Through his influential New Irish Writing page and as literary editor of the Irish Press, the 20th century Irish literary landscape simply would not be the same without David Marcus.
Through those pages he gave new writers a platform and a seal of approval. He has also contributed, through his fiction, to a greater understanding of the history of Jews in Ireland, particularly the Jewish community in his home town of Cork.
This slender book purports to be both a second volume of autobiography and a brief history of the almost defunct Cork Jewish community. However, rather than a straightforward memoir or historical account, Marcus has chosen to blur the boundaries and produce a hybrid literary genre. Taking Aldous Huxley's assertion that "Autobiographies are essentially works of fiction, whatever biographies might be", Marcus has a fictional character recount the history of the Cork Jewish community. At the same time he plays with the very act of literary creation as his character, Aaron Cohen, "the last Jew in Cork", develops a life and takes off in directions unforeseen by his inventor.
Thus, each chapter of Buried Memories alternates between Marcus's recollections and the recovered memories of Aaron Cohen, as told to a rookie journalist, Catherine. At the first meeting between Aaron and Catherine, Cohen insists, almost in the same self-effacing manner as his creator: "As I told you, my own life has had nothing special about it. It's not that I'm trying to conceal anything. I'm the last Jew in Cork, and that's about the only distinction I can claim, if you can call it a distinction. So there's no story in me. The real story is between Cork's first Jews and its last Jews. It's a bit of history, Catherine, and a part of Cork's history too. Is it to be lost forever after more than a century's existence?"
While it is clear that Marcus wants to play with genres, unfortunately the narrative flares into life only intermittently. And the most satisfying parts of the book are memoir rather than the fictionalised history of Cork's last Jew. When Marcus is describing his correspondence with Jamie O'Neill, author of At Swim Two Boys, or recalling the hilarious battles to stage his translation of The Midnight Court, he is at his best and the magic happens. But that serves only to underscore the niggling feelings of dissatisfaction prompted by the interwoven fictional episodes. It is difficult not to feel short- changed, longing for more of Marcus's insightful recollections or for Aaron and Catherine to be fully realised literary creations. Rather than seamless melding of genres, it seems more like a constantly interrupted conversation with no conclusion.
Buried Memories is a welcome addendum to Irish literary history and Jewish Irish history, but as a literary experiment it doesn't quite work.
Katrina Goldstone is anti-racism officer for Amnesty International and a freelance researcher in Jewish history
Buried Memories by David Marcus Mercier Press, €12.95