ABSTRACT
The genre of A Memoir of the Future belongs to the pioneering tradition in which an author's self-analysis or internal autobiography is co-extensive with the creation of a new genre for self-expression. In this chapter, the author discusses the aspects of all the approaches to the Memoir, but most fundamentally, to return to his initial interest in the author's quest for formal structure, since the author believe that for many readers a major obstacle to enjoying the Memoir is not the dream-content, but rather, a lack of generic reference-points. W. R. Bion describes the Memoir as a "fictitious account of psychoanalysis". It is not psychoanalysis, but neither does he wish it to be just "talking about" psychoanalysis—a mode which he considers boring at best, lying at worst. The story of Bion's escape from the tank, narrated in The Long Week-End, is retold in the Memoir in the form of a dream.
