Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter Aft

Afterword

When I belatedly think about how unreliable human memory can be, I realize that forgetting something doesn’t particularly mean that it’s just gone for you. This isn’t about how forgetting and losing are two different things, or how you might actually remember something you thought you’d forgotten. This is about cause and effect─in other words, even if you’ve forgotten all about learning how to ride a bicycle, it doesn’t mean you’re unable to ride one, and not remembering where you read something doesn’t mean you’re unable to make use of the knowledge. That kind of thing. Forgetting doesn’t result in a chain reaction. Going into more detail would require discussing the difference between episodic and other types of memory, and conflating all that stuff when you talk about it really is a mistake to begin with, but when I close my eyes to that fact and think about it, I find it somehow encouraging that forgetting something doesn’t mean it never happened. You could even say that it allows us to delude ourselves into believing that in this uncertain world of ours, some things are certain. Speaking of delusions, a bothersome type of case here is when you aren’t forgetting something but remembering it incorrectly. In other words, you think you remember learning how to ride a bicycle, but the episode was entirely different, or you’ve mixed up a tome that dispensed valuable knowledge with another book─not impossible, and when it happens, what an uncertain place it makes our world. What is right, and what isn’t right? What is true, and what isn’t true? If my memory serves me correctly─or turning that phrase inside out, if my memory serves me incorrectly, having to check myself at every turn makes for a pretty miserable life. Maybe we should just chuck these doubts?

And so, this has been part seventeen of the MONOGATARI series. Volume number seventeen. I think it goes without saying that this is the longest NISIOISIN series in history by a bit, but what a mess it all becomes once you get this far along. Seventeen volumes? You can’t casually recommend that long a series, can you? Reading seventeen books is quite a feat. As for the author, it gets daunting, and my pen threatens to flow less freely. That’s why I decided to return to where I began and write this once more entirely, one hundred percent as a hobby. Now, of course, it led to such an outpouring that the work ended up getting split into separate volumes… But the hobby-esque latitude there is nice in its own way. Tasteful, even. And so, this has been OWARIMONOGATARI Part 01, “Chapter One: Ogi Formula,” “Chapter Two: Sodachi Riddle,” and “Chapter Three: Sodachi Lost.”

Ogi Oshino, who spent Second Season shrouded in mystery, has finally started to take off the veil and even made it onto the cover. Thank you very much, VOFAN. The End Tale is moving on to its latter part, and I’ll do what I can to keep there from being a middle part.

NISIOISIN