In his novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Umberto Eco introduces us to a character known by his nickname, Yambo. It is a novel (with illustrations) concerned with amnesia, with discovering the past, and journeying through a life that may or may not be your own; in this novel, a man suffers a stroke that leaves his personal memories inaccessible to him. He can, however, remember everything he has read, and thus all of his memories are quotes. He is a man who suffers a stroke in his sixties, and—as such—is born…in his sixties, since he can’t remember any of the elements of his life, beyond the things that he’s read. I’m only one-third of the way through the novel, and so there’s quite a lot left for me to discover within its pages. I discovered The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana across the street from my place of occupation. I work across the street from a used bookstore, and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana stared at me through the display window. The cover of the book is elegant and features a thing, probably recognized in Italy. It’s an improbable animal with an improbable tongue. The image on the cover of the book makes its appearance within its pages, as do other images. One of the beauties of The Mysterious Flame… lies in the fact that it’s a book for adults, and it is generous in the wide range of illustrations it presents. The images in the book are as powerful as the narrative itself. This is an odd reference to those images. “Endless Winter” is one of those strange echoes one experiences when immersed in a rich and heady world of narrative fiction. In Eco’s novel, the character Yambo attempts to reconstruct his life, by rummaging through an attic; the narrative structure of the book shows the reader many of the images that Yambo sees, and many of the reproduced images are profoundly rich, ornate, and evocative of other things. (Who knew comic books and cookie tins could be so interesting!?) As I wandered around—after work today—I came across a wall of images: actually, it was a garage door full of images. For a short time, I knew what a 63-year old fictional Italian stroke victim must have felt with his eyes. I saw the same thing: a memory of winter in Chicago, condensed into a stylized image. A cartoon. A thing on a half-abandoned garage. I remember the Polar Vortex Winter…and on a level, it’s still going on, only it’s a polar vortex summer. I remember my emotional past, and yet, this image fits the story of Yambo rediscovering a life he both lived and didn’t live, but isn’t sure which is which. I’m amazed at the logic of that, of the strange way in which life and fiction intertwine. It’s as if my life—at least today—is the plot of a Borghes story, in which a fictional narrative becomes a “real” narrative, and both narratives curve back upon something else which probably has a lot to do with a painting, a clock, or a bookshelf in a library. In thinking of a Jorge Luis-Borges-type plot, while reading an Umberto Eco novel, I’m struck by the amazing qualities one average life can attain (after work, no less) on a random Tuesday. I’m amazed that this image is an image of something else: a snapshot of something in my mind, which reflects something that I’m reading, which touches upon something that I’ve read…and somehow, all of it has to do with what I’ve photographed, and will—probably—write on another random Tuesday in the distant (or not-so-distant future. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.