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The Nature of a Crime · Theme
Time and Memory
How The Nature of a Crime develops Time and Memory.
The prefaces and the narrator's reflections emphasize the distance of the past, the unreliability of memory, and the way time transforms both personal experience and literary collaboration.
Where it surfaces
- Preface I
The narrator reflects on the past, describing his consciousness of the work as 'fleeting visits from a ghost' and noting that 'all the fun of one's life must be looked for in the past.'
- Preface II
The narrator's struggle to recall the details of writing contrasts with the vivid return of phrases from other works, highlighting the selective nature of memory.