Reconstructing a childhood crime from adult memory is an untranslatable problem

Evidence

The problem is also the nature of memory, the passage of time and language itself, the language of the many versions and the meaning that slides away between them. “I must have done, I must have known, I must have thought…,” says Mary, reporting on her state of mind as she killed Martin Brown. I must have … The eleven-year-old child speaks through the mouth of a woman of forty. It is hard not to think that Mary is a giant translation problem. If we could solve it, would we hear a language that means anything to us? — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 498

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to Mantel’s own historical-fiction method of reconstructing inner lives from incomplete, conflicting sources. — connects to: Severe psychological trauma creates impenetrable mental barriers against pre-war memories — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 569; Childhood conviction can collide with adult authority over a factual impossibility — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 1666; Adult childhood memory is an unreliable substitute for asking children directly. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 8290 (+3 more)
• FICTION: The ‘giant translation problem’ of making a damaged adult voice speak for a silenced child is a rich angle for character work.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 498

Broader Connections

• Severe psychological trauma creates impenetrable mental barriers against pre-war memories #corroborates (0.65) — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 569