Review: Life is lived in moments ...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 14, 2013
Life is lived in moments. To understand this is to understand remembrance. In "The Memory of a Salt Shaker," a lifetime is lived in the seemingly random snippets of that same life. It's a short story that feels like a lengthy one because the narrative is so nicely built upon the sensory experiences of the protagonist. Touch, smell, sight and sound are all present, but taste is the dominant experience."He cooks. A small pleasure to him, the food adds scents and heat to the house, adds presence."Taste is everything for this grieving man, especially salt. The salt in Bert's salt shaker triggers those memories of his past that will get him through the present and help him forget the future. But they are not Bert's memories; they are his dead wife's. Don't we all dream of seeing our lives through the eyes of another?Though the relationship between taste and remembrance recalls Marcel Proust's "À la recherche du temps perdu," Bernard M. Cox's protagonist is certainly haunted in a way that is arguably more detrimental to his mental state. A work of magical realism, and a narrative reminiscent of Kafka and Camus, "The Memory of a Salt Shaker" is tightly written with sharp sentences that waste no time getting to the point.