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in reply to: Borkowski 5-8_Maggie's Response #686
Patrick, that’s…just beautiful.
That’s all I had to say, really. I can’t add anything to your thoughts. They’re just beautiful.
in reply to: Daimys – Response to Borkowski Ch. 5-8 #685Dear Daimys,
I seem to be stuck on the memoir-as-a-genre question today, because your post made me think about it too when you wondered if maybe you can’t be pleased with memoir. It brought up more questions for me about the genre: is it impossible to be satisfied with a memoir? Will the reader always want more because, unlike in fiction or even biography, the writer and the subject are the same person and seem so…accessible? And, in writing memoir, at what point does it stop being a memoir? At what point does it become a critical essay or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, fiction? Not because you start making things up, but because if you are trying to write about yourself using the same tools developed for fictional characters, you have to become a character at some point, even if you are still you and all of this stuff really happened.in reply to: Patrick James_Response ch5-8 #684Dear Patrick,
Your points about imposter (did your spell-check recognize that word? because mine doesn’t, which is disturbing) syndrome and the connection to literacy were really thought-provoking for me. I’ve sort of accepted imposter syndrome as something that most academics, for one reason or another, feel to some degree, but I’ve never really wondered what it is about academia that fosters this pattern. Your post made me connect that feeling of not belonging with David’s point about books and learning being used as obstacles over which only the privileged few may pass rather than treasures which everyone should have. That description of learning makes it easier for me to understand how so many different people with such different combinations of challenges and privileges can feel like they are imposters in academia: it’s not about any one set of privileges or disadvantages, it’s about feeling as though everything we do is an Olympic contest where only the top three go on to the next round and we, based on whatever disadvantages we came in with, can’t possibly be in the top three.Dear Patrick, I am also fascinated by the issue of the actually publishing a memoir piece which, necessarily, involves one’s nearest and dearest. For me, the “mind-at-work” qualities of the writing that you’re talking about make the prospect seem even more agonizing, since having people see my mind at work is one of my pet paranoias. So the prospect of my friends and family reading, not just what I think about them, but the process of me thinking about them, seems absolutely terrifying.
Dear James, Thanks for the honesty. I think that, even if we liked the book, a lot of us may have had similar critiques, but decided to write about something else. I know that I did.
For me, your post makes me really wonder about memoir as a genre, both writing it and reading it. How do we write something that, as we’ve been discussing in class, we are compelled to write and, at the same time, be as merciless with the manuscript as we would be with an academic or a fiction piece? And what, on the other end, is the attraction of reading memoir as opposed to other genres? Is there something about the urgency that is compelling, even when the writing is repetitive?
in reply to: Borkowski 9-11_Maggie's Response #681Maggie, I really enjoyed your anecdote about the composition teacher, which I think is rather ironic, considering that you have a beautiful writing style. And “enjoy” might not be the right word. The anecdote caught my attention, because it made me a little angry. I think people make too much of “correct” writing, as if language could ever be reduced to right and wrong. It reminds me of E.M. Forster, when he writes in “A Room with a View” that “there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time–beautiful?” And I think that what Forster is getting at is the indelicacy of beauty–how beauty is inherently shocking, unexpected–perhaps unruly. So why can’t our language be like that? Beautiful, reckless, and indelicate. I, for one, still don’t really know the correct way to deploy a subordinate clause. I don’t think I even know what a compound construction is. But, I do love to write.
And for me, reading and writing are, at the heart, acts of love; and maybe that’s why I’ll always remain, on some level, an amateur writer (according to the OED “One who loves or is fond of…”) I love beautiful, indelicate things. Messy, spontaneous, circular writing. Sentences with no verbs. Sentences with no subjects, or objects.
in reply to: Borkowski 5-8_Maggie's Response #676Maggie, I love this point: “In a way, it seems like everything that he becomes because of the shooting was already there, but he either wasn’t aware of it or couldn’t act on it until afterwards.” And I can’t help but wonder if these qualities are the things that allowed him to survive his experience. You mention his humor, his guilt (moral conscious), his doubt, his disconnection. Personally, humor has always been a means of survival for me. I often feel that if I can laugh at something, then I know that I can survive it. And I think that really resonates throughout David’s (practicing too) memoir. His humor really creates a space for critical distance, a space that I think is fundamental to his ability to write the memoir at all. And I think this really speaks to the healing capacities of humor.
in reply to: Daimys – Response to Borkowski Ch. 1-4 #675I think what you’re zeroing in on regarding the structure of the memoir is it’s discursive methods. The memoir definitely has a quality of orality to it. He incorporates a lot of informal language, asides, digressions, and he goes off on many tangents. I can see how this might be a frustrating quality–it reminds me of listening to my grandmother talk; she usually begins a really great story, and I’m very interested in what she’s saying, and then she wanders off in some other direction, starting a new story and never finishing the one she began. In a way, I think that Borkowski’s messy method corresponds to the messiness of his story. Real life often resists a linear progression. Instead we circle round, spiral up or down, and sometimes we go off on strange, unexpected tangents. And I think his narrative structure allows him to incorporate ambivalence and messiness into his story–unanswered questions resist a clear progression, and maybe his technique allows him to work within the shifting limits of his experience?
Of course. Happy to talk more….but can you see it any way other than an ‘aesthetic’ choice?
Patrick,
I like the idea of poetry as both a secret and a way to engage with secrets (with mysteries). What better way is there to tell a secret?in reply to: Revealing Secrets Response #646Chrislande, I like what you picked out about the story of Sondra’s mother-in-law and her gun. You made me think about the way essay uses that story to talk about the fact that relationships don’t necessarily stop evolving when one person dies–or leaves. I too got the sense that Bebe’s death did not bring the relationship between her and her daughter-in-law to a close, but, rather, marked an important change in that relationship.
in reply to: Getting to the heart of things. Marguerite #645Marguerite,
I too latched on to the reveal at the end of the essay, and found the voice so gentle, intimate, but also felt it’s veracity. I really like this idea that you present of Perl moving line by line to make a connective flow! I had not thought of the poems on that micro level, but upon reflection it makes perfect sense.
Chrislande
in reply to: Megan H. response to Prof. Perl #643Megan,
That’s exactly how I felt when I was finished with the chapter, that Perl had blossomed and felt contained, but not in a limiting manner. Further, she now controlled the secret of memoir, revealing herself in a confident style. To me this exhibits something different for her as a writer; developed self-assurance and mindful disclosing.
By writing “I will not include them here, not because they are embarrassing or painful, but because they are private, as some writing must be” (146), I think this type of statement, if done correctly, works for a writer. Here, she offers the reader speculation and more importantly lets the reader wonder.
in reply to: Megan H. response to Prof. Perl #641A thoughtful and powerful way of understanding ‘constriction’ and ‘edges’ — and emerging into full possession. Thank you, Megan.
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