Reviews
The Memory Code: The Secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and Other Ancient Monuments by Lynne Kelly
lbmertes57's review against another edition
2.0
I wish I had left this book in the ditch.
All things aside I think the reason I did not like this book other than the excessive use of the word "ditch" is that it wasn't what I wanted it to be. I was looking for a book about the structures for research and it didn't provide the information I wanted or needed. Granted, it is not the book or the authors fault.
All things aside I think the reason I did not like this book other than the excessive use of the word "ditch" is that it wasn't what I wanted it to be. I was looking for a book about the structures for research and it didn't provide the information I wanted or needed. Granted, it is not the book or the authors fault.
rojaed's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting and plausible hypothesis on the meaning of standing stones and henges. It I haven’t heard if any useful research has come out of it. It can only be speculation at this stage
mmparker's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book, although I found Dr. Kelly's confidence and hyperbolic language pretty offputting for a semi-academic work. Whatever. A theory that posits that humans across all of history are intelligent and value knowledge isn't going to get much complaint from me right now.
stanro's review against another edition
3.5
Very interesting though rather repetitive. The author has a cogent theory about the relationship between the landscape and cultural memory that she illustrates by applying it to many different cultures.
nairam1173's review against another edition
3.0
The strongest part of this book is definitely the first 100 pages--absolutely fascinating look at memory and ways to nurture your own.
Then it becomes a very long paper on proving her thesis through archeological site descriptions (which I HATE--just give me a picture!!!!) and lots of repetitive language. It picks up again a little around page 200 when we move out of European sites and get some more variety. Still not as fascinating as the beginning.
All things considered, still a very interesting book and theory. I love how it works at tearing down chronological snobbery and assumptions of everything being about religion.
Then it becomes a very long paper on proving her thesis through archeological site descriptions (which I HATE--just give me a picture!!!!) and lots of repetitive language. It picks up again a little around page 200 when we move out of European sites and get some more variety. Still not as fascinating as the beginning.
All things considered, still a very interesting book and theory. I love how it works at tearing down chronological snobbery and assumptions of everything being about religion.
ashcomb's review against another edition
5.0
After reading this book, I wonder if we nowadays take for granted fast access to knowledge? It is always there to be grasped, and there is no need to memorize and internalize it. It feels so. But as Lynne Kelly points out in the book, keeping the shared knowledge alive about the environment and the history of the people has not always been so straightforward. There had to be memory techniques and devices to store the vital information to be passed on to the next generations. Such techniques had highly specialized people who devoted their lives to be the keepers of the oral knowledge of the tribes. But it wasn't only simple tricks that the pre-literate cultures used. They shaped their landscapes with massive constructions, especially after they stopped being nomadic. Or so Lynne Kelly proposes. This book is composed of her Ph.D. thesis made more reader-friendly. I think I'm convinced when she suggests that Stonehenge or other such sites might have been used in memory rituals. It just clicks how she lays down her argumentation of places and acts previously dismissed as having an astronomical or religious purpose.
I have a master's in Comparative Religion, having studied the world and pre-literate culture religions; hand waving and simply stating something to be a religious ritual has always bothered me. It really doesn't explain a lot. It just puts some act into a neat little box, so it doesn't have to be understood. There is always a need and meaning behind such complex behavior because rituals usually aren't free. They take time and resources to perform. Keeping the memories alive or preparing the group to hunt the great beast by ritualistically mimicking the behavior of the prey and passing on information makes more sense. Yet, that said, I would still propose we could see them as religious rituals, as a line between religion and knowledge isn't as strict as it might be considered now. The gods and spirits were real, and their behavior and acts were part of everyday life. Important information about the cosmos, creation, and cultural norms were passed on through such stories. Still, the functionality of memory keeping stays. There is no need for an either-or situation. Regarding the sites discussed in the book being part of monitoring the solar or lunar cycles, I leave you to read Lynne Kelly's argumentation on that.
As you may have picked up, I found the book highly engaging. Lynne Kelly offers us a new way of seeing our past and the monuments and artifacts left behind. She backs up her claims by taking us on a journey around the world, arguing through academic studies and archeology, and by her personal experience using the memory spaces and Khipus. Her personal stories made the book enjoyable and more relatable. I read in awe how she fitted the world and its history to her neighborhood and kept it alive while walking her dog, or how she memorized influential figures and other details through ancient techniques. She wrote how memorizing shaped her understanding of the world and made everything she stored more personal. Sharing her experience made the read more personal and meaningful for me. It helped me see the world from a new perspective and understand how and why pre-literate cultures used such memory devices. Lynne Kelly is a superb writer. I had a similar awe experience when I read Spiders: Learning to Love Them.
Books like this are why I love reading non-fiction. They make me fall in love with our world and see how wonderful and bizarre we humans can be. Not only that, the book made me question not to take for granted the explanations we give to our past. We really cannot know. We can speculate. And often enough, experimental archeology has shown that we get things wrong.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day <3
I have a master's in Comparative Religion, having studied the world and pre-literate culture religions; hand waving and simply stating something to be a religious ritual has always bothered me. It really doesn't explain a lot. It just puts some act into a neat little box, so it doesn't have to be understood. There is always a need and meaning behind such complex behavior because rituals usually aren't free. They take time and resources to perform. Keeping the memories alive or preparing the group to hunt the great beast by ritualistically mimicking the behavior of the prey and passing on information makes more sense. Yet, that said, I would still propose we could see them as religious rituals, as a line between religion and knowledge isn't as strict as it might be considered now. The gods and spirits were real, and their behavior and acts were part of everyday life. Important information about the cosmos, creation, and cultural norms were passed on through such stories. Still, the functionality of memory keeping stays. There is no need for an either-or situation. Regarding the sites discussed in the book being part of monitoring the solar or lunar cycles, I leave you to read Lynne Kelly's argumentation on that.
As you may have picked up, I found the book highly engaging. Lynne Kelly offers us a new way of seeing our past and the monuments and artifacts left behind. She backs up her claims by taking us on a journey around the world, arguing through academic studies and archeology, and by her personal experience using the memory spaces and Khipus. Her personal stories made the book enjoyable and more relatable. I read in awe how she fitted the world and its history to her neighborhood and kept it alive while walking her dog, or how she memorized influential figures and other details through ancient techniques. She wrote how memorizing shaped her understanding of the world and made everything she stored more personal. Sharing her experience made the read more personal and meaningful for me. It helped me see the world from a new perspective and understand how and why pre-literate cultures used such memory devices. Lynne Kelly is a superb writer. I had a similar awe experience when I read Spiders: Learning to Love Them.
Books like this are why I love reading non-fiction. They make me fall in love with our world and see how wonderful and bizarre we humans can be. Not only that, the book made me question not to take for granted the explanations we give to our past. We really cannot know. We can speculate. And often enough, experimental archeology has shown that we get things wrong.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day <3
oisin175's review
3.0
The first 3 chapters provide an interesting overview of the theory and give a vague description of how the author tested the theory in her daily life. More specific discussions of this aspect may have been helpful, though it seems clear that a clear discussion of this may be difficult to provide. The remaining chapters provide useful descriptions of potential memory spaces, but more pictures would have been helpful in some sections. Additionally, the phrases "I believe..." and "I am convinced..." surrounding claims that certain spaces were memory spaces seemed to fit poorly in the narrative. They serve to remind that this is just a theory without significant concrete proof underlying it. Overall this is an interesting book and I may try some of the techniques in it, though it seems both too long and too vague. More in-depth discussion would have been helpful, but based on the actual specificity that was provided the book itself was too long.
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