Memory and Mistake
Memory and Mistake

Summary/Abstract: My paper is an attempt at drawing a parallel between the memoirs of two novelists writing in English, one Canadian and the other one British. In analyzing Timothy Findley's Inside Memory and Paul Bailey's An Immaculate Mistake I have as starting point images of a childhood fascinated – and here I intend to slightly adopt Maurice Blanchot's existentialist perspective on children's way of getting into fascination –, with stories about war, and especially the Great War, later reflected in some of the writers' major works. Timothy Findley and Paul Bailey, who couldn't take part in either of the two World Wars, seem to have been heavily influenced by the accounts provided to them by fathers and other relatives – possible father substitutes – during childhood & youth years, when searching for / trying to accomplish their artistic identity.

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