In Breviary of Oblivion, the daring and subtle intellectual adventurer Lewis Hyde clarifies the unfathomable mysteries of memory and forgetting, trauma and recovery, remembrance and amnesia, reconciliation and forgiveness.
MICHAEL CHABON

We live in a culture that places great value on memory: how many of them are we capable of treasuring, what is the best way to document and retain the different moments of our lives ... Breviary of Forgetfulness is a superb experiment in scholarship, autobiography and social criticism in which Lewis Hyde forges a new way of looking at forgetfulness: what if we consider that bad memory is not something we should fear - either in the form of insanity or simple forgetfulness - but rather a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and a way of rebirth?

The author brings together in this work fragments of texts and works of art from different periods, from antiquity to modernity, and weighs the potential advantages that amnesia can bring today, given its condition of creative and political force. Hyde also turns his gaze inward and uses his life and memories of him as a canvas on which he highlights the virtues of a concept that we have perceived as bad for too long.

In short, Breviary of Oblivion is a unique, carefree and inspiring synthesis that is only capable of creating an author of the stature of Hyde, in the words of David Foster Wallace, "a true star of non-fiction literature."