Trauma’s fragmented memory demanded a nonlinear narrative form

Evidence

The critics barely noticed the formal innovations of the book: that Jimmy tried to mirror the fragmenting of memory by trauma in the very way the book was structured. The first sentence of the second paragraph in No Name lets the reader know that something different is about to unfold: “Much, much, much has been blotted out, coming back only lately in bewildering and untrustworthy flashes.” Time folds back on itself as he repeatedly shifts between the past and the present. A fragment of memory triggers an extended reflection in the book—readers of Toni Morrison’s Beloved should notice an ancestor. Concern about a linear story is cast aside, because Baldwin found a form to capture and reflect his experience of the after times. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 374

Categorization

• XREF: Directly names Toni Morrison’s Beloved as structural ancestor — a connection the reader can build on in their canon argument. — connects to: Trauma manifests in four symptoms unified by the concept of suddenness — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 3128; Repetition acts as the psyche’s default emergency homeostasis when pleasure alone cannot manage trauma — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 4054; Trauma wounds are temporal ruptures born of the nullified past — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 4370 (+3 more)