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DrHGuy’s Cyber-Bookmarks: 30 March 2007

Filed under: Literature, Web Sites-Blogs | By DrHGuy | March 30, 2007 at 3:51 am

Memoirs: The Fine Art Of Improving History Through Memory



A sporadically promulgated annotated listing of arguably worthwhile, recently published online reading, new or revised websites of potential utility or ostensible interest, and other internet-accessible experiences that, were it not for the casually collected, cavalierly collated, & capriciously collocated components comprising these posts, could easily be overlooked - which would be, in some cases, a shame


This is Memoir Week at Slate.com. As the introduction points out, “many memoirs these days are anything but coming-of-age stories; instead, they tackle issues and subjects larger than the self.” This hardly seems a historically unique turn of events, given that the commonly accepted differentiation between autobiography and memoir (or at least the one I was taught in my sophomore English Lit course at Missouri Southern College) is on the lines of the explanation given by the Britannica “Memoir” article:1

A memoir differs [from autobiography] chiefly in the degree of emphasis on external events. Unlike writers of autobiography, who are concerned primarily with themselves as subject matter, writers of memoir usually have played roles in, or have closely observed, historical events, and their main purpose is describing or interpreting those events.

In any case, this Slate.com Memoir section considers confessional poetry, the involvement of children in civil war, and “why autism has become a metaphor for our times,” among other issues.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

More fun, if less profound, are the responses to this Slate.com premise:

The other week, Slate posed the following question to a group of memoir writers: How do you choose to alert people who appear in your books that you are writing about them—or do you not alert them at all? If you do, do you discuss the book with family members and friends while the work is in progress? How do you deal with complaints from people who may remember events differently than you?

This ~Memoir Week~ link leads to Slate.com page with links to a dozen or so essays and columns on the topic. I’ve included three examples to give a flavor of the offerings:

    The Liars’ Club: How I told my friends I was writing about my childhood—and what they said in return,” by Mary Karr. Posted March 27, 2007

    Publish, Then Flee: How to tell your family you’re writing about them,” by Sean Wilsey. Posted March 28, 2007

    Collateral Damage: How I told a former lover I had written about him,” by Edmund White. Posted Mar. 29, 2007.

My interest in this subject may be disproportionate, given that Julie2 often found me a handy, readily adaptable blank slate she could, and did, develop into whatever kind of character she needed for her story (For examples and my response to this literary kidnapping, see You Don’t Know Me), and I often write about friends and family in this blog.

Certainly, however, anyone with authorial aspirations could benefit from reading these pieces. Moreover, those with an interest in contemporary culture, the literary process, or memoirs and novels (almost all of which seem to contain significant autobiographical features) would find this issue and these pieces at Slate.com thought provoking. Finally, anyone who appreciates thoughtful, introspective writing should give these short essays a look.



Footnotes


  1. Gore Vidal, in his memoir Palimpsest, wrote that “a memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked.” ~back~
  2. Julie Showalter was the fiercely intelligent, sexy, and loving woman and prize-winning author, with whom I had a outrageously wonderful 20 year marriage that ended with her death in late 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. Many posts on this blog are about her, our unlikely romance, and our life together, and still others consist of her writings. Information can be found at Julie FAQ. ~back~

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1 Comment

  1. Sorry for off-topic, but today Leonard Cohand and Anjani are visiting Poland. In Channel 3 of Polish Radio - You can listen to the interview with Anjani at 4 pm (CE Time) and to the concert at 19:00 here: http://www.polskieradio.pl/sluchaj/play.aspx?p=r3 or here: http://www.polskieradio.pl/sluchaj/play.aspx?p=i3

    Greetings and thx for the great site!

    Comment by apolinary polek — March 31, 2007 @ 7:55 am

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