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Simon Critchley — or, at least, someone sharing a lot of biographical detail with him — comes into possession of the papers of a recently deceased friend. Inside he finds essays, cryptic fragments, and horoscopes of the great western philosophers arranged in an interlocking chart. In fact his own horoscope is in there too, but he’s less than delighted to find that it also states the date of his death. Slowly he begins to understand the project to which all of this was meant to contribute: the construction of a Memory Theatre, a mnemonic device with borderline mystical implications for the person who activates it. Critchley’s is a novel of ideas. It examines the extremely complicated and significant role that memory plays in our lives, which is no small topic. A memory can be a cherished, private reflection or the public memory we preserve in a culture. We look to it to decide our actions, form relationships and keep ahold of our own identity; they are our strongest connection to the past, but are constantly rewritten and re-interpreted in the light of our present circumstances. Where the novel falls short — or where it may baffle the reader, which in the context of the story isn’t actually that bad a thing — it does so in service of the idea that it’s trying to communicate. Critchley (as narrator) speaks with clarity throughout but his own memories have been compromised by an accident earlier in his life. All of the novella’s other characters are given to us through what memories he does still have. There is a sense that the action is always happening just away from the focus; jumps are made and obvious thought-processes are left out. Memory Theatre is soothingly written and at some moments it feels about as ephemeral as a memory itself. It’s also a slow burner. This is a surprising thing to say about a book that’s not quite sixty-eight pages long, but most of the action unfolds through quiet, poignant snippets from the lives of petty academics. Fans of Borges and Umberto Eco will be delighted at the flow between philosophy and abstrusely significant historical detail but there’s no denying that the references in this little book are very dense indeed. It is a digest that sends the reader out to forgotten corners of European history. Overall, Memory Theatre is a subtle and finely put-together work; perhaps the best warning one could give is that it’s a book worth reading even if only to be frustrated by its bizarre and original content.