Uncle Joseph

"My uncle did not look resigned and serene like most of the dead I have seen. Perhaps it was because his lips were swollen to twice their usual size. He looked as though he'd been punched. He also appeared anxious and shocked, as though he were having a horrible nightmare.

When was he last conscious? I wondered. What were his final thoughts? When did he realize he was dying? Was he afraid? Did he think it ironic that he would soon be the dead prisoner of the same government that had been occupying his country when he was born? In essence he was entering and exiting the world under the same flag. Never really sovereign, as his father had dreamed, never really free. What would he think of being buried here? Would he forever, proverbially, turn in his grave?"
(Page 250)

This passage really stayed with me for a few reasons. America, for many people living in different countries, really is a beacon of light or hope, or a land of fortune compared with their own misfortune and underprivileged lives. As a reader and an American, I really thought that once Uncle Joseph fled Haiti and got to America he would be safe. I feel saddened by what happened to him. Not only was he treated like a number and not a person, but he never even got a chance to see his family one last time. It's also a shame that he never wanted to leave Haiti and was finally forced to, and died in the process. I think Uncle Joseph's death was the most tragic because it was so unexpected, unjust, and happened in such an undignified way.

Splicedness

The passage I want to bring up is sort of long, but it is pages 181-182 at the start of the chapter titled "Hell." Here, Danticat is sharing yet another story told by Granmè Melina about a man who finds himself in Hell. The story ends abruptly on page 182 with a quick transition from the last line of the story to where it moves on at "The next morning, Monday, at four a.m.," and so on.

This "splicing" of literature is a technique used by Danticat a lot which keeps her story interesting. It's an interesting way to see the story she was told as it interrupts the story she is telling, and that keeps her still distant and separate from her emotions towards the situations. Especially with a tale about Hell where it is defined as being "whatever you fear most" when the following line talks of Maxo and his family going somewhere reluctantly.

where is edwidge?

"Beating the Darkness"

this chapter features a narrative on the events of the october 24, 2004 when United Nations soldiers and local riot police joined forces in trying to eradicate the murderous gangs from Bel Air. the thing that struck me about this particle passage, is that edwidge is nowhere in the events that took place. and yet, her retelling of what happened is intriguingly detailed and clear.

---------

i think perhaps the most gripping line from that whole section, is on page 171. it reads: "Looking over the trashstrewn alleys that framed the building, he thought for the first time since he'd lost Tante Denise that he was glad she was dead." for me, that is so heavy. what a thought for her uncle to be having. in my opinion, a thought like that is so personal, that it can only come out of some kind of deep love, nurtured and cultivated over a great time. i feel like, to be thankful for someones absence in life, can only be created from an incredible sense of hopelessness. and this is what's going on within the mind and emotions of danticats uncle, though she's writing it.

i want to know how she knew that was what he was thinking, because of how outside of herself a moment like that is.

did he admit this extremely personal moment to edwidge? or is this part of the imagination that comes with the creative license given to all writers?

late post for jessica: writing prompt

Pick a memory and give it a voice. Talk to it as if it were a person.

APS for Jenna

Brother, I'm Dying, page # 41
"However, time was of the essence, so he had no choice but to travel without her, even though he feared that he might die and never see her again."

What did the white man say? page # 44
"The best place for me to make my announcement would have been at the family meeting the week before. This is probably what both my parents would have accepted, and preferred, rather than spitting something out adn scurrying off. But that night I couldn't look into my father's face and--though I knew it would come very natually to him and my mother both--ask taht they be happy for me."

Where's the Title?

I wanted to bring to attention the actual part in the book where the title gets its name.

"My uncle heard a crackling as my father's phone was picked up. 'Hello," my father said, his voice creaking anxiously. No good news could ever come at this hour of the night, he told himself.
My uncle pressed his lips as close as he could to the mouthpiece to whisper these three words: 'Frè, map mouri.' Brother, I'm dying.
'What's wrong?" my father asked.
'Gòj,' he replied. Throat."
-p. 41

I believe Jackie brought up the simplicity in the words, such as "Brother, I'm dying" or "My wife is dead." I believe this is really important to notice, especially here when the reaction isn't as emotional as one might expect. What fascinates me is how Danticat uses her translations as yet another barrier to separate herself from the book as we have seen throughout. I see her using the exact language first with the simple translation following as this split shows us the situation as it happened and the situation as we would understand. Unless the reader is familiar with the language, the translations are important after that brief moment of being left in the dark as we try to unfold what the Uncle was saying.

A Connection

verba volant, scripta manent -- spoken words fly away, written words remain."

“To write vulnerably is to open a Pandora’s box. Who can say what will coming flying out? When I began, nine years ago, to make my emotions part of my ethnography, I had no idea where this work would take me or whether it would be accepted within anthropology and the academy.” The Vulnerable Observoer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Ruth Behar. 1996

Ann Page this book brought tears

"I wanted very much to be in New York with my father, so I closed my eyes and imagined myself there. I am sitting on the edge of his bed and we're watching the Price is Right on television. Unsure of the answers, we guess wildly but still get all of them right anyway. This makes my father so happy that he rises out of bed and starts to dance. At first he dances like a ballerina in slow motion, but then he increases his pace until he's jumping up and down, bouncing on and off his bed." p. 207
I think this passage is especially beautiful because of the raw emotion that is expresses. Edwige so desperately wishes her father to be well again, and in this passage she images he has become well enough to dance. I think that all people who have lost someone can relate to those moments in time when you dream of them being well. Those brief and beautiful moments when all is as it was when it was perfect.

This part is because I just loved this book... The most touching line of the book..
"I think now that my father waited for me to leave. That he did not want me to hold Mira with one hand and his corpse with the other." This line also sums up the entire journey of the novel.

Logic vs. Feeling

....hmmm, pertinent? Wednesday's quote: "Better to be without logic than without feeling." Bronte. What do you think?

Ann Page

"A few weeks back [Richard] was coming home late one night when someone flagged down his car, ordered him to roll down the window and pressed a gun to his temple. He heard the slow clicking of the trigger and quickly identified himself. When he heard Richard's name, his would-be assassin begged his forgiveness saying, 'Chief, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was you. You buried my mother a few months back.'" pg. 151

"Another hour went by with no shooting. A few church members arrived for the regular Sunday-morning service. 'I think we should cancel today,' Maxo told his father when they met again at the front gate. 'And what of the people who are here?' asked my uncle. 'How can we turn them away? If we don't open, we're showing our lack of faith. We're showing that we don't trust enough in God to protect us.'" pg. 173-74

"Besides, he was still hoping that the situation might somehow be resolved. He could talk to the dreads,...and explain. After all, before they were called dread or even chimeres, they were young men, boys, many of whom had spent their entire lives in the neighborhood. He knew their mother, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles and aunts." pg. 182

The intersection of political/personal, public/private:

"During his life, my uncle had clung to his home, determined not to be driven out. He had remained in Bel Air, in part because it was what he knew. But he had also hoped to do some good there. Now he would be exiled finally in death. He would become part of the soil of a country that had not wanted him. This haunted my father more than anything else." - Pg. 250, Brother, I'm Dying

This passage illustrates, for me, the way that the political intersects with, and interrupts, the personal in Danticat's autobiography. This passage sums up the way that the political issues in Haiti had a profound effect on Joseph Dantica's life. Although he was not personally involved in the political battles (both real and metaphorical) that took place during his life time, Edwidge Danticat's uncle was forced to become a part of them through actions of other people. He was forced to be buried in New York, after spending his whole life refusing to move there. He was forced out of his own home, out of his own life in many ways, because of political actions. In a very real way, politics interrupted his personal life, his own actions, the actions of those around him.

Language and Death

Throughout the text death is expressed through language. I suppose that's rather obvious because its a text, however how it is expressed is interesting. When someone is dying or has passed away Edwidge's family expresses it without using excess words. "Brother I am dying." "My wife is dead." This then led me to think about whether or not our society uses and over abundance of words to discuss death, as though somehow to make it easier?
Perhaps this is a bit of rambling..but I was certainly struck with the almost abruptness the topic of death is brought up.

New Beginnings

"As my head bobbed up and down, I felt my old life quickly slipping away. I was surrendering myself, not just to a country and a flag, but to a family I'd never really been a part of...'You're now free to be with your parents. For better or for worse'...I wondered if he (the consul) knew something we didn't."

I can't imagine how hard this would have to be, to leave everything that you've ever known, your home, family, country, to go and live with people that are your parents only in the biological sense. All this at eleven years old would be too much for some to handle. It does remind me of Mary McCarthy, when she had to move in with grandparents that she didn't know because her previous life as she knew it, had ended.
At the same time that it was the ending of Edwidge's old life, it was the beginning of something totally new. Even though neither she, nor her brother, really knew what life was going to be, they went ahead with the change anyway.

Story-Telling

I think Danticat's method of using stories as a mirror for events happening in her own life is very effective.

For example, Granme Melina's Rapunzel-like story (on page 69) of "a beautiful young girl whose mother, fearful that she might be abducted by passersby, locked her inside a small but pretty little house by the side of the road while the mother worked in the fields until dusk." Danticat explains how this story was really a reflection of how Granme Melina must have felt, who was in her 90's and just waiting to die, or to be let out of the house.

Danticat does this again on page 116 when she recalls another of Granme Melina's stories about the old horse and the goat. It's a reflection of her current situation with her brothers; she and Bob are on one team and their brothers Kelly and Karl are on another. Because Edwidge and Bob were born in Haiti and lived their lives without their parents, and Kelly and Karl were born in America and lived everyday with them, they were strangers to each other. Technically, Edwidge and Bob were the oldest, but Kelly tells them, "they say you two are older than me...but it's not true. I'm the oldest." Because he was older than Karl and never knew Edwidge or Bob, he was accustomed to being the oldest child in the house. With the horse and goat, the goat assumes he is older than the horse by saying "Can't you see I have a beard and you don't? Aren't beards a sign of old age?" Danticat follows this by saying "Kelly's time with our parents was his beard."

The use of stories to reflect real-life situations is helpful in these instances to explain how Granme Melina and Kelly were feeling. It is also helpful in showing the reader the culture in which Danticat grew up in and the importance of story-telling. Both stories evoke a sense of understanding and empathy within the reader for these characters as well. With Rapunzel, I felt bad for Granme Melina, and with the goat, I felt bad for Edwidge and Bob but understood where Kelly was coming from. It's a great example of the importance of symbolism and stories in understanding something that might not otherwise be so easily explained.

"There was an odd stillness to the neighborhood, the houses merging with the murky shadows in the dark. As they guided him up and down the hills and inclines of the winding neighborhood alleyways, he felt like a blind man being led through a labyrinth." - Pg. 191, Brother, I'm Dying.

I think this is a very accurate description of what it feels like to move around after devistation or extreme upset. Everything seems far away, muted, behind an invisible curtain. It's hard to connect with the world around you.

It's also a sensation I get when I'm up very early in the morning and it's not quite light out, or when I'm up very late. Boundaries seem farther away, and you feel like you're floating.

Danticat's Novelistic Style

Danticat's writing is quite novelistic in many places throughout "her" autobiography. The point at which I noticed it the most is when she is discussing what happened to her uncle before he leaves Haiti and the short time he spends at that awful place called Krome. I know that she did get some information from her uncle, who attempted to write portions of his story on snippets of paper that she found after his death, but she had to have taken some liberties when writing about her uncle's departure from Haiti. I also realize that she received some verbal information from Tante Zi as well, but still, there are portions of the story that read like any fictional, page-turning novel.

"A half hour into the service, another series of shots rang out. My uncle stepped off the altar and crouched, along with Maxo and the others, under a row of pews. This time, the shooting lasted about twenty minutes. When he looked up again at the clock, it was ten a.m. Only the sound of sporadic gunfire could be heard at the moment that a dozen or so Haitian riot police officers stormed the church..." (page 174).

"...His entire life was now reduced to an odd curiosity, a looting opportunity. He was grateful, however, that no one seemed to know he was there, hiding. Some thought he had actually been killed. Others seemed certain he had fled" (page 189).

Clearly, Danticat could not have known EXACTLY what her uncle was feeling during certain instances in her telling of the story. However, she writes as if she is in his brain, maintaining a third-person point of view that is typcially seen in fictional tales. I really believe that is why Danticat's autobiography has been the hardest to put down for me. Everytime I read it, I honestly thought I was curling up with a wonderful novel. I guess that's one of the great things about writing your autobiography for someone else!

A Shakespearean Snippet

Definition of soliloquy:
an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregarded of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts)

And, of course, the actress in me has made it impossible to read autobiographies and not think of Shakespearean soliloquies, which are extremely prominent in many of his works, especially Hamlet. Here is the link to a YouTube video of Kenneth Branagh delivering Hamlet's most famous soliloquy in one of the many film versions of Hamlet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JD6gOrARk4&feature=related

Danticat's Autobiography "Starts with Death"

What makes Edwidge Danticat's "autobiography" different than the other texts we have covered in class is that she immediately claims that she has written the book for her father and her uncle, simply because they can't. I suppose you could argue that Douglass composed his work for someone else (abolitionist propaganda), but he never openly admitted to that fact. Danticat has literally decided to put everything out there in honor of her family. However, I would also like to argue that Danticat has put everything out there for herself as well, especially for the regions of her heart that are still aching from all the pain she has suffered and how much death she has encountered.

Danticat's autobiography begins with the quote: "To begin with death. To work my way back into life, and then, to return to death. Or else: the vanity of trying to say anything about anyone."
-Paul Auster
The Invention of Solitude

The first segment of this quotation is simply a nod toward the idea of purging emotions of pity and depression. There is no doubt that Danticat has suffered much, and I am sure she has felt multitudes of self-pity during many occasions of her life. Danticat writes about many deaths, meaning that she tells the stories of these deaths in order to purge the feelings she has associated with them. For Marie Micheline, for Tante Denise, for Uncle Joseph, for her father (assuming that he dies, for I have not actually read that far quite yet), she must purge what she feels. She will, of course, never forget what these individuals have done for her. She will never forget how much she misses them, but she will learn to live again. She will "work her way back into life." Eventually, of course, she will "return to death," whether it be her own death, or more deaths that she will encounter in life, deaht is always lurking behind every corner. Life and death is really a game of chance. Fate rolls your dice every day.

The last piece of the quotation alludes to the idea that nothing should ever be told about another person until they have lived a full life, until they have seen everything they have been put on Earth to see. "Vanity" in the quote does not indicate pride, a synonym we typically associate with the word, but rather indicates pointlessness or hollowness, a lack of value. The individuals who have died in Danticat's lifetime become valuable in their passing. They have legacies. Their stories NEED to be told, or else they can potentially be forgotten, something that Danticat clearly does not want to have happen.

Speaking to my Memory: Writing Prompt Response

Memory, speak to me! Speak to me about music. Speak to me about the possiblity of death. Are there gods that dictated what happened that day? You were with me waiting to record the day's events in your own personal diary. You were waiting to aid me in remembrance. Did you ask the same questions that I did? Why him? Why cancer? Can it even be cured? How much is he suffering? Whose bone marrow will be his life preserver? I often wonder if you knew what was going to happen already. I wonder if you had already written the happy ending. Had you seen it played out? Did you create those dreams for me, those wonderful dreams of predetermined survival? Did you help save his life? Did we? Together? Memory, was that all he needed, just a little bit of hope? Some prayers? You, Memory, will never permit me to forget the tears, how they felt, steaming hot, coursing down my cheeks. You will never permit me to forget the numbness that overtook every aspect of my being. You'll never allow those feelings to be forgotten. I love you for that. I thank you, because for that reason, his recovery has been all the more rewarding to witness...

Thank you, Memory!

Edwidge Danticat and writing others' lives

"I am writing this only because they can't." - Pg. 26

This very brief passage (some might even call it a line or sentance) seemed worthy of note to me because it reminded me of our discussion of writing preserving lives and memories beyond what actual life or actual memory can do.
Writing, although it can purge our memories of so much that we lose things, also preserves them indefinitely. You can save a life by writing about it, which is perhaps exactly what Danticat was trying to do in this work.
We assume that this sentence means that the two men she's primarily writing about have passed away (although maybe not... maybe they are just not capable of writing this story), so we guess that Danticat's recording of this story is an effort to keep the story (or stories, as may be more accurate) from being forgotten, a way to keep her family from being forgotten.
This reminds me of Nabokov's woe at having given away his memories to fiction, and it reminds us me of Douglass' effort to make others aware of the atrocities of his life and the lives of slaves in general. Does anyone write an autobiography and not try to preserve something? I doubt it. Perhaps we also write autobiographies in order to forget or leave out certain things. After the author dies, that negative incident that was left out will forever cease to exist. So life-writing is an act of preserving while it is also, simultaneously, an act of eliminating.

((place intriguing entry title here))

in response to the prompt: write to one of your memories as though it were a person.


i remember you, rough warm pavement, that loved to stub little toes and scratch little hands, and coerced with sand so that causing little knees to bleed took much less effort than if they were working separately. i remember you like i remember the height of the basketball hoop. i was four and you were ten-thousand feet high. you pushed me while i pushed myself, a globe of pickled orange between my two palms: no bigger than baby maple leaves. up into the air, that familiar space between the ground and the sky; my outline lifted by the innocence of itself in the moment. i remember you too gravity, reeling me down again to meet the concrete warmth of the long driveway pavement lined with argus-eyed day lilies. it was then that the fabric of my knees tore, so easily, as if the worn threads of my seams had ripped. that scary bright color fell out, and small pebbles jumped in; i still have the dark spots to prove it. and i remember you fear; fear of my mother scraping the pre-scars with something antiseptic, and the pain it would cause and hiding in the red, two-story playhouse my father built within the apple trees; a quiet, self-healing, nursing of the surface where my leg bent in half. i remember you painfilled pleasant memory.

Brother, I'm Dying

"I write these things now, some as I witnessed them and today remember them, others from official documents, as well as the borrowed recollections of family members. But the gist of them was told to me over the years, in part by my uncle Joseph, in part by my father. Some were told offhand, quickly. Others, in greater detail. What I learned from my father and uncle, I learned out of sequence and in fragments. This is an attempt at cohesiveness, and at re-creating a few wondrous and terrible months when their lives and mine intersected in startling ways, forcing me to look forward and back at the same time. I am writing this only because they can't."
page 26

autobiography can take many forms, part 2: song

Artist Site

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"Piano Man" by Billy Joel

What do you think? Any other autobiographical songs?

(Please bear with the short commercial at the beginning)

Talking to Myself

In response to Ash's writing prompt on talking to one's self...

I talk to myself all the time. And I mean ALL the time. Occasionally it's out loud, but most of the time my monologues are internal. I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time. I'm also one of those annoying people who get songs or melodies stuck in my head constantly and can't help but sing (horribley) or hum the tune out loud. I did just that the other night while watching tv with my roommate, until she finally asked me to shut up. I was so wrapped up in my own little world I didn't realize I could be heard! The best places that I have found to have deep conversations with myself are in the shower and while running. Many times, my thoughts are in prayer form, which is really just a compilation of my worries, hopes, and fears, but directed in what I believed to be a helpful direction. Is prayer a one-sided conversation if you don't get a verbal response? Am I really just talking to myself?

Fate and Autobiography

"During the beginning of the summer and all through the previous one, Tamara's name had kept cropping up (with the feigned naivete of Fate, when meaning business)..." - Pg. 228

I found this statement interesting, because it brings up the issue of whether we really control our own lives. We may control our own stories, the telling of our stories, but how much do we control the events that form those stories? Nabokov admits in this passage that he is not the only motivating force behind his life experiences. What does this mean for honesty in his narrative? Does this lend us the idea that perhaps he's telling us how things happened as they seemed to him: in a mysterious, perhaps prearranged, way? Does this make us think he's a quack?

Do you believe in Fate? Destiny? Have you ever noticed the way something or someone, in retrospect, seems to have been present in your life long before you noticed it?

Posting! A response to a writing promt.

How do I talk to myself?

I guess I rarely create active dialogue in my head... but I think I make observations a lot, like "that was dumb" or "what the hell am I doing?" I think I swear in my head a lot, too.

When I was little I used to constantly narrate in my head. When I was actively tinking of something I didn't becuase I couldn'tdo both at once, but whenever I was doing something mindless I would narrate. Itold the sory of my life as it happend. I'd narrate getting dressed in the morning. I'd narrate brushing my teeth. I'd narrate eating breakfast. Sometimes I wonder now how I ever managed to sqeeze in a meangful thought. Perhaps I didn't.

Today, I don't talk to myself much at all. I've never done it outloud, but I guess now I always have a running stream of real thought at all times. In fact, there are many times when I wish I could shut it up.

a prompt thought and a thoughtful prompt

"Just before falling asleep, I often become aware of a kind of one-sided conversation going on in an adjacent section of my mind, quite independently from the actual trend of my thoughts. It is a neutral, detached, anonymous voice, which I catch saying words of no importance to me whatever-" (page 33)
and

"It is certainly not then - not in dreams - but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement , on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction." (page 50)


after our conversation in class on tuesday, i began thinking that perhaps the secure sensation we feel, of looking in the right direction despite the unclear view from our castle tower, might be a type of self-assurance, spoken subconsciously through that seemingly anonymous voice who mumbles to us just before we fall into a state of sleep. <---- is this a periodic sentence? i admit, i was trying. but i'm not sure i'm completley clear on its criteria. i think it should be much longer and illustrative.... anway, i said this thought would be prompt: in summary, i'm now tossing around this idea: we all have a conscious, which speaks to us in a sort of guiding manner (more attainable in 'reality'). and a subconscious, which fuels the essence of our actions (more available in a 'dream'-like state). that, mixed with the above passages, has got me thinking that there might be a way to bridge these contrary scopes of perspective. talking to yourself. Prompt:

when you talk to yourself, because i believe that everyone does in some form, is it outloud or in your mind? what do you say to yourself? is it criticism or positive reinforcement? is there a balance? is it always about something constructive? do you ever talk to yourself about nothing?

what do you get out of talking with yourself.

Writing Prompt

I was so fascinated by Nabokov's meditation on colors in association to the alphabet. I tried to think of colors in a different way, and I wanted to find a way to make a writing prompt about it. Thinking about some of the other writing prompts, I remember having to write about my favorite word. I was wondering if other people could think of colors, textures, or scents while thinking of their favorite word. So my writing prompt is:

Associate a color, texture, scent, sound, or number to your favorite word. Be creative! If your word is "dog" try not to associate it with a furry feel, a barking sound, or the number 3.

A prompt for Thursday..

When I was trying to think of a prompt for Thursday's class I tried to think of subjects that came up in all three autobiographies we have already read. The first few I thought of were relatively ordinary: education, family, childhood, lifestyle, ect. Then I thought to myself if I were to write an autobiography would I write about the joyous times in my life, or the trying times?
So my prompt for Thursday is: If you were to write your autobiography to be published for all the world to see, would you be more inclined to write about the difficult times in your life or the happy times? Why?

Periodic Sentence

I'm always fascinated with the last lines of books. I find it intriguing what last words the author wanted the audience to read as a last thought, a last moment.

There, in front of us, where a broken row of houses stood between us and the harbor, and where the eye encountered all sorts of stratagems, such as pale-blue and pink underwear cakewalking on a clothesline, or a lady's bicycle and a striped cat oddly sharing a rudimentary balcony of cast iron, it was most satisfying to make out among the jumbled angles of roofs and walls, a splendid ship's funnel, showing from behind the clothesline as something in a scrambled picture - Find What the Sailor Has Hidden - that the finder cannot unsee once it has been seen.

Even though this is all one complete sentence, what struck me was the last bit about "something in a scrambled picture... that the finder cannot unsee once it has been seen." I remember seeing a lot of "I Spy" pictures when I was younger, or those images where you stare at it enough and see an image that appears to be popping out. You would struggle to see it, and then all of a sudden it came to you, and you were so proud of yourself. The next time you looked at that picture, you'd see the image or find the object right away. It felt like you couldn't even trick yourself to work at it like you once did. I don't know about other people, but I always felt sort of lost when I knew exactly where Waldo was in all of my books. What an interesting last image for Nabokov.

Back to Nabokov's Spiral

I feel like I'm behind on posts, but I still want to share my thoughts.

We had a discussion in class about the spiral, and though my book is a bit different in pages, I want to bring up the first two sentences of Chapter 14 in "Speak, Memory"

The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free.

I would like to point out that "spiritualized" is not even an official word, probably along the same lines as the term "chronophobe." With that aside, I would like to point out that in a spiritual or religious sense, circles are used as symbols of eternity. Here, Nabokov sees circles as vicious and only until it's uncoiled is it free. I always saw circles as peaceful things myself, so I tried to think of it the way Nabokov seems too. A circle is made of a line that is perfectly curved that finishes where it starts so it is continuous and you can not find the beginning or end. Then I thought, that even though a circle is eternal, it is also so finite. You can't travel beyond that line of that circle, and it just keeps looping you through the same path, just over and over and over again. A spiral, though still looping, moves you progressively forward, or back for those that see the glass half empty. Either way, there is something more than that same area, and you just keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

I guess circles are vicious... I know there are some events I'd rather not repeat exactly the same.

Humor in Nabokov...YES, PLEASE.

There are quite a few passages from this autobiography that jumped off the page for me, for one reason or another.

The one I find most humorous is Nabokov's anecdote in chapter 5 about his "wicked plan." (page 103)

"I explained to my brother a wicked plan and persuaded him to accept it...my brother declared he was cold and tired, but I urged him on and finally made him ride the dog (the only member of the party to be still enjoying himself)."

This is one of the few passages where I felt like Nabokov was a relatable person, and I appreciated this. It was surprisingly humorous and almost like a "break" from the rest of the narrative, which spends a large amount of time focusing on his thoughts and specific images rather than seemingly "normal" child behavior, like this passage shows. It's something you could expect of any little boy, and because up until this point I found him, yes, I'll say it....pretentious, it was like a breath of fresh air. A point for Nabokov!

Writing Prompt for Thursday, Oct. 16

Keeping with the theme of autobiography and why one would want to read another's thoughts, feelings, experiences, and memories, write about why you think you're a worthwhile person. Why should someone care to read about your life, or even get to know you in a non-literary sense? What makes you special?

A Prompt for Thursday

This morning I was in the computer lab printing a paper, and I saw a single sheet of paper on the ground below the printer. I picked up the paper and found the following quote on it listed with many other Orwellian quotations:

"An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats."

-George Orwell

Think about how this quote may apply to the texts we have already covered in this course. Did Douglass, McCarthy, or Nabokov share any disgraceful memories or thoughts? If not, can we trust these individuals? Are they lying to us? Can you describe some moments in the autobiographies that can be considered "good accounts," and do you think these particular occurrences are accurate and factual?

Nabokov's Nostalgia

"The story of my college years in England is really the story of my trying to become a Russian writer. I had the feeling that Cambridge and all its famed features, venerable elms, blazoned windows, loquacious tower clocks, were of no consequence in themselves but existed merely to frame and support my rich nostalgia. Emotionally, I was in the position of a man who, having just lost a fond kinswoman, realized, too late, that through some laziness of the routine-drugged human soul, he had neither troubled to know her as fully as she deserved, nor had shown her in full the marks of his not quite conscious then, but now unrelieved, affection...And I thought of all I had missed in my country, of the things I would not have omitted to note and treasure, had I suspected before that my life was to veer in such a violent way."

(Page 261)

I suppose this passage caught my attention, because it reminded me of the time in my life that really developed my desire of wanting to be a writer. My high school years made me take a nostalgic look back at my carefree childhood in an Idaho small town. High school made me want to escape back to that time in my life that was seemingly stressless (I don't know if that's a word!) and when everyone seemed to know and admire me. My high school years ignited a fire in me that seemed to burn in the direction of my past. It's smoke pointed to the times in my life that were simpler. I knew then that I wanted to write those memories down, cherish and keep them forever, either for myself in a diary of sorts, or share them with the world. Perhaps some day I will, but I know exactly what Nabokov was feeling. When I moved to New Hampshire, I felt like a girl without a real home. New Hampshire was as foreign to me as the Far East and that is what made me yearn for the 1990s, the years when I didn't have to worry about exams, career paths, and what to make for dinner.

I also love Nabokov's personification usage in this passage. He personifies his time spent in Russia by using the kinswoman metaphor. The kinswoman (his past) leaves him and he didn't realize how much he had adored and appreciated it until it was long gone. You never know how great something is until it's gone. Sometimes we forget to appreciate life's pleasant, simple surprises, because we become so caught up in the turmoil going on around us and the difficult decisions we are forced to make every day.

A Late Post on Photo Captions in "Speak, Memory"

I apologize for the lateness of this post! It was something I had planned to put up all weekend and just kept feeling disgustingly sick. It is the idea that I presented in class today (Tuesday, 10/14), regarding the family photograph on page 140 of Speak, Memory.

Here are the parts of the caption that I found most intriguing:

• "The round thing on the tree trunk is an archery target..."
• "...photophobic Trainy..."
• "My paternal grandmother is holding, in a decorative but precarious cluster, my two little sisters whom she never held in real life..."
• "I am perched on the bench arm, hating my collar and Stresa."

Nabokov's allusion to the target on the trunk is so "him." It's just part of his style, and I find it slightly ingenius. Nabokov clearly has a vivid "Memory" that seems to see everything. Each memory that Nabokov writes about is so visually stimulating. I feel like it's just in his nature to notice everything about his surroundings, even is photographic self.

Photophobic Trainy just amuses me, because he looks so photophobic in the picture. It was the perfect way to describe the poor dog's emotional status in the picture. He looks absolutely petrified to be there. My dog is also particularly photophobic, so I have seen Trainy's posture before in my own life (expect in a MUCH larger canine).

Nabokov's grandmother never holds his sisters in real life. This indicates that pictures can be incredibly deceiving. Writing can be honest, and Nabokov is being honest about his grandmother who was apparently not a nurturing grandmother in the least. His words are the truth, even though the photograph could say something completely different about the personality of his grandmother.

Nabokov's final thought in the caption is sort of funny, because his photographed self does look extremely annoyed to be in the picture. He looks like he is about to spring off the bench's arm the first chance he gets. I just think Nabokov has done something that humans tend to do, and that is consider their physical and mental states of being when photographs were taken. I have numerous photographs in my house that bring back sensory memories. He remembers the discomfort he felt when wearing the collar and Stresa. I remember a photograph of me at my 8th grade birthday party blowing out the candles on the cake, and that photograph always makes me remember the spell of the burning candles mixed with the delicious smells of the frosting and dough of the cake.

Photographs in "Speak, Memory"

This may be a completely random observation, and I may have overanalyzed the captions that appear beneath the photographs in Nabokov's autobiography. I just find the photographs in the book so fascinating. He has used some particularly poignant photographs throughout the course of his examination of memory. Under some of these photographs Nabokov writes his captions using the first-person pronoun "I." Under other photographs, the title "the author" is utilized. I began to wonder whether these photographs were added in by an editor. I honestly don't believe that is true. I think that Nabokov refers to himself as "the author," even though it is signifying usage of a third-person pronoun.

On page 228, there is a photograph of Nabokov in a rowboat, in which the caption reads, "The author in Cambridge, Spring 1920. It was not unnatural for a Russian, when gradually discovering the pleasures of the Cam, to prefer, at first, a rowboat to the more proper canoe or punt."

I don't think an editor would add a caption like this. This caption is still clearly coming from Nabokov's voice. I think that "the author" uses this specific title to signify that he IS an author and that is how people know him. I also think that there is a possibility that Nabokov has used this third-person title to signify that someone else (aka Nabokov's memory) is discussing his situation in each photograph. Nabokov is giving his memory authenticity and allowing it to speak about his bodily self from an outsider's perspective. He also does not use the term "the author" in his captions until Chapter 10, which is more than half way through the book's entire contents. He is just about heading to college during this time, which is when he realizes that he wants to be a Russian writer. His nostalgia forces him to think about his past and reflect in a way that has created this brilliant autobiography.

Any thoughts on Nabokov's other captions?

-Megan

Writing Prompt for Thursday:

We have talked about language in Frederick Douglas (did he write his own work? was it written for him? could he really have had that vocabulary? etc.), and we've talked about language in Nabokov (is he pompous? is he showing off? is that just the way that he thinks?)...

... so, my prompt is to write about something, anything basically, that happened this week that amused you or alarmed you or made you laugh, but you must write it the way that you would say it, write it in your own particular patterns of speech. Don't write it the way you would write a paper for a class.

I don't mean that you have to write dialogue; I just want you to use the same vocabulary and the same syntax that you would in normal conversation with a friend.

A Passage from Nabokov:

"In those years, that marvelous mess of constellations, nebulae, interstellar gaps and all the rest of the awesome show provoked in me an indescribable sense of nausea, of utter panic, as if I were hanging from earth upside down on the brink of infinite space, with terrestrial gravity still holding me by the heels but about to release me any moment." (Pg. 226 - 227)

I found this passage interesting because it reminds me of a passage at the very beginning of the book: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness" (pg. 19). It seems to me that in these two passages, Nabokov is acknowledging how meaningless, short, and unimportant one human life is. We are nothing in comparison to the world around us, the universe around us, just as we are nothing compared with all that has come before and all that will come after. He tells us in the very first line of the first chapter that his story doesn't matter, and he reminds us throughout the work. An odd approach to trying to convince someone to care... Nabokov knows that there's no real reason for us to want to read his life story, but he tells it anyway in case we're somehow drawn in. And maybe it's this honesty that makes us want to know more.

Casey McMorrow

"There it lay in wait, a family of serene clouds in miniature, an accumulation of brilliant convolutions, anachronistic in their creaminess and extremely remote; remote but perfect in ever detail; fantastially reduced but faultlessly shaped; my marvelous tomorrow ready to be delivered to me." pg. 213

Jenna Payton

chapter 6, page #119
"From the age of seven, everything I felt in connection with a rectangle of framed sunlight was dominated by a single passion. If my first glance of the morning was for the sun, my first thought was for the butterflies it would engender."

Nabokov speaking...

So I had a very difficult time finding a passage we had not already talked about that dealt with memory. Instead I found several interesting passages...
The first passage is on page 188. In this section Nabokov is describing how his school life is so different from his peers. In the final line of the section Nabokov writes "But how on earth could I discuss this with schoolteachers?" I think this sentence is interesting for two reasons. The first being that it draws the reader in, it asks the reader a rhetorical question. The second being that it is a writing technique I do not believe Nabokov has employed thus far in this work.
On page 148 Nabokov describes his memory as "a glass cell" which I think is a very interesting way to think about memories.

Nabokov Speaking to His Memory

Well, I had trouble finding a specific quote that demonstrates this... so I'm chosing to write about the title of the work instead... I hope that's okay.

Nabokov's title, "Speak, Memory," evokes a sense of something to come, something about to happen, a sense that a dam is about to let go. I think it is this sense of anticipation that makes this book so engaging for me. I feel like just on the other side of the page some gem will be presented to the reader, and you just have to be on the look-out for it... it's almost like Christmas, but with less mistletoe. I mean, obviously I'm exaggerating, but I really do have this feeling of wanting to know what's next, wanting to discover the next profound statement.

I guess what I'm trying to point out is that by employing this technique Nabokov invites the reader into his private world, which makes each story seem like a gift to us. It is as though he's invited us along for a tour through his memory, and we're privaleged to be there because it's really a private conversation between him and his memory.

Is this making sense?

Cars

"This informal contact between train and city was one part of the thrill. The other was putting myself in the place of some passer-by who, I imagined, was moved as I would be moved myself to see the long, romantic, auburn cars, with their intervestibular connectiong curtains as black as bat wings and their metal lettering copper-bright in the low sun, unhurriedly negotiate an iron bridge across an everyday thoroughfare and then turn, with all windows suddenly ablaze, around a last block of houses." (Chatper 7, page 144)

1. Periodic sentence?

2. I found this particular passage to be of greater significance than it may seem because of its implications. Nabokov, once again proving his great imagination, places himself in the mind of a stranger and assumes to know, or pretends to know, what they are thinking. The reason I find this so interesting is because I tend to do this myself. Often times, while driving down the interstate, I'll see all different cars: different makes and models, different license plates, different conditions, bumper stickers, and different people inside. Sometimes I can't help but imagine where they might be either going to or coming from, or what their lives might be like. This passage also mentions cars, but cars of a train connecting different countries rather than automobiles without a known destination. I also find it interesting that this is something his memory has captured and retained all these years as an exciting moment in his life, and with so much detail. Cars are literal objects that take us from one physical location to another (whether train or automobile), but can also be used in this instance as a metaphorical transition from one part of his life to another.

autobiography can take many forms

"...poems are autobiography... and comment, the metronomic alternation of anecdote and response."

-Louise Glück

Butterflies? No, syntax!

"It is astounding how little the ordinary person notices butterflies." (Pg. 129)



Okay, so this may not seem like a deep and brilliant line... at first!!



No, but really. When I first read it, for some reason it struck me that this is true about almost everything... what I mean is that the things you find really fascinating, regardless of what they are, are never very interesting to most other people. Has anyone ever not noticed this? I'm not talking about liking the Red Sox or watching some popular TV show.... I'm talking about something that is not embedded in our culture. Like, for instance, I find people's syntax really intriguing (which has a lot to do with why I manipulate mine so oddly on occasion). Weird, right? And that's exactly my point... you are not that interested in syntax, so you notice very little about it. Nabokov recognized that many people do not notice much about butterflies. It's the same thing, and I found it interesting that Nabokov pointed it out.

Truth/Honesty in Nabokov

In the opening pages of his autobiography, Nabokov announces the following:

"What I have not been able to rework through want of specific documentation, I have now preferred to delete for the sake of overall truth." (Pg. 14, second paragraph)

I found this remarkable for two reasons.

1 - This contrasts distinctly with they way that Mary McCarthy openly admitted to including error/fictionalization which she provides commentary on in her italicized responses to chapters.
2 - This implies that we are supposed to believe every word of Nabokov's narrative. Can we possibly do that? What about places that veer into imagination quite obviously? I suppose that we can believe these passages are true at least in that they may really have happened in his mind, but we cannot necessarily believe that they happened in actual reality. This, of course, begs the question of what "actual reality" is and where the line between reality and imagination occurs. Perhaps much of what we remember is imagination, as our imagination colors our every interaction. Or perhaps not. I can't answer that question for all of us.

What I can say is that Nabokov asserts that his entire autobiography is truth. This does not mean, to my mind, that there is no fiction or imagination at work... it simply means he is not creating any of his story out of nothing; everything he writes is based in fact or memory that he believes is fact.

APS Posting for Jenna

Chapter 2, pg. # 35)
"The confessions of a synesthete must sound tedious and pretentious to those who are protected from such leakings and drafts by more solid walls than mine are. To my mother, though, this all seemed quiet normal."

APS Posting for Evan

"I do not agree with the assertion that McCarthy used the italics to simply allow the reader to have further insight. I know that I have commented on this blog saying that allowing the reader to gather more information was the point to the italics, however after further reading I no longer feel that way. Instead I contend that she uses the italics because it is theraputic to her. I say this because throughout the autobiography the italics begin to get smaller and smaller as she gets more used to being completely honest. This is finally confirmed in the last chapter, "Ask Me No Questions," where she doesn't even need italics anymore. She has grown throughout the telling of her tale and she sees no more need for the italics. Although it is easy to see why the italics can be seen as a way of letting the reader in, it is truly a theraputic way for McCarthy to grow."

the correlation of color, letter and sound

i'd just like to go back to what erin wrote on wednesday.....

i really enjoy reading about how certain letters evoked very specific colors in Nabokov's mind. for me, sometimes its the smallest detail about a person, or a unique quality in their perspective that i find most intriguing. i love how he shares this personal quirk with us. in regards to his coloring of letters, i especially found it interesting because i've had many a conversation, about what certain days, months, words and emotions conjure up as far as color goes. but i had never really broken words down so far as to think of how letters might appear individually.

it wasn't until i reread the passage erin had posted, that i started to think Nabokovs' assignments of color were not random. if you read aloud: "alder-leaf f, unripe apple p, pistachio t", for me, there's a very obvious connection between the sounds of the color words, and the sound of the individual letter. in my opinion, Nabokov's pairing of color with letter, might all have a foundation in alliteration.

Nabokov's Image Creativity

"Below, a wide ripple, almost a wave, and something vaguely white attracted my eye. As I came quite close to the lapping water, I saw what it was-an aged swan, a large, uncouth, dodo-like creature, making ridiculous efforts to hoist himself into a moored boat. He could not do it. The heavy, impotent flapping of his wings, their slippery sound against the rocking and plashing boat, the gluey glistening of the dark swell where it caught the light-all seemed for a moment laden with that strange significance which sometimes in dreams is attached to a finger pressed to mute lips and then pointed at something the dreamer has no time to distinguish before waking with a start." (pg. 116)
I've always paid more attention to writers when they create vivid images for the reader to really make the point of what it is they are trying to get across. I think that Nabokov does this throughout his memoir, but so far the image of the swan has been my favorite. I can exactly picture this scene because he lays it all right out on the page, right down to the color and feel of the water. It is because of his ability to take an event that he witnessed fifty years ago and make me, as the reader, see the same thing that I've enjoyed reading his autobiography. It makes the subject matter of his life that much more interesting.

Nabokov's Colorful Alphabet

I believe it was Margaret who mentioned Nabokov's correlation between letters and colors in class, but I just wanted to point out the specific passage (Chapter 2, page 34).

"I present a fine case of colored hearing. Perhaps "hearing" is not quite accurate, since the color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a of the English alphabet has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony."

Nabokov then classifies certain letters into different categories of color. For instance, "In the green group, there are alder-leaf f, the unripe apple of p, and pistachio t. Dull green, combined somehow with violet, is the best I can do for w."

I find it highly entertaining that he imagines letters not only as different colors like green, blue, or purple, but "alder-leaf," "pistachio," and "violet." I also find it entertaining that he seems almost exasperated with the letter w and therefore, the color schemes in which he sees the letter is "the best [he] can do." If he sees letters in different colors then I wonder how he views words, sentences, and entire passages? Either as a resplendent rainbow or a horrible mess, I would think!

Dreams of Ghosts in Nabokov

"Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I am aware of them, withuot any astonishment in surroundings they never visited during their earthly existence, in the house of some friend of mine they never knew. They sit apart, frowning at the floor, as if death were a dark taint, a shameful family secret. It is certainly not then, not in dreams, but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction." (Page 50)

This is one of my favorite passages in the first four chapters of Vladimir Naobokov's autobiography. I think he hits home with his dreams about the dead. Every time that I have had a dream about someone in my life that has passed away, I only see them as ghosts, and I only see them in states of hopelessness and sorrow, as if death has stolen their souls (which it quite literally has). Every time my subconscious mind brings these ghosts to my dreams, they are never smiling and are almost always crying. The tears are the most vivid pieces of the images. These beings must be missing me just as much as I am missing them.

When one is at his/her happiest, mortality is certainly something that comes to mind. These are the moments when a person believes that his/her life is headed in the right direction, or becoming meaningful day by day. When I am at my happiest, when I have just done something that I am particularly proud of, the cloud-nine feeling ensues. The cloud-nine feeling brings hopes of allowing myself to be suspended in time, being in that moment forever, but then I realize that tomorrow could be very different, with very different (possibly poor and depressing) outcomes. That is life!

'storytelling...

"This is an example of 'storytelling', I arranged actual events so as to make 'a good story' out of them. It is hard to overcome this temptation if you are in the habit of writing fiction, one does it almost automatically".
Mary McCarthy, pg. # 164 + 65

Discussion from Thursday, Oct. 2

Just to touch on what was discussed on Thursday...(my last post was on the same topic).

Catholic oppression seems to be a common thread through various narratives (besides this one, Angela's Ashes comes to mind). I'm Catholic and have had a much different experience, so it is interesting to me to read these accounts. Of course I believe them. I only went to Catholic School on Sundays and for camp; I never had to attend a school with nuns everyday of the week, and I also live in a different time period. I also think it has something to do with the Catholics in Mary McCarthy's life. Her grandmother, though innately a good person, used Catholicism as ammunition against others and her hostility came across to Mary. I had a very different type of Catholic grandmother. If you look for the negatives in something, you're sure to find them. But if you look for the positives, you're sure to find those too.

Another Make-Up Post for Mary McCarthy (Catholicism in General)

In class we discussed the portrayal of the Catholic Church and some of us shared our own ideas. I was able to start how I perceived it, but I feel like there's still more I would like to say.

Especially in college, many of us are subjected to novels where Catholicism is critiqued harshly or remembered by many authors as a cruel upbringing. Granted, a lot of the experiences that people have remembered are almost unbelievable. I know that I have been made to read stories about how horrible convents were, mostly in Ireland, where punishments seemed cruel and unusual. Accounts of authors such as James Joyce and Frank McCourt make Catholicism appear to be strict and harsh. In the modern days, the Catholic Church is often associated by the priests who were caught having sexual encounters with altar boys.

All of this and more does upset me, yes, but as a born and raised Catholic I was brought up with a different understanding of the church. To me, going to church was a family experience and was always followed on Sunday mornings by going out to breakfast or getting donuts to have at home. The priest at my church was a gentle and caring man who was very close to our family. It was easy for me to see him as a man rather than JUST a priest, which made it a lot less intimidating for me to see him preaching at church... and "preaching" is used very loosely here. Now that I'm away at college and getting older, I don't attend mass very often and when I do go it's usually because I'm home for the weekend and I decide to go with my parents. My religion is a comfort to me, knowing I have my beliefs and that I can practice them in my own way, and it is not being forced onto me as an obligation. It's because of this that I can read about the Catholic Church and not let it sway my decision to be Catholic.

Make-Up Post for Mary McCarthy

With all that has been happening to me and my family, the last line of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood stuck out to me.
"At that moment, the fact that my grandmother was senile became real to me."
We discussed in class how that was a fitting ending and there was no use for an italics portion after it with Mary McCarthy explaining it further. It is such a powerful last line and I think that most of us know exactly what she meant in that last line. I have had a few moments in my life where something finally became "real" to me, and one of those moments happened during the time when I was unable to be in class.

My grandfather was an amazing man and represented my idea of strength. He had a very sudden and severe fight with cancer, and I went and saw him when he was at his worst. It was then, seeing him in bed and his struggles to just speak and move, that his illness became real to me. It's an upsetting thing to see a family member completely altered by any disease, and Mary McCarthy hit the nail on the head for me. Throughout the whole book, I found things I could relate to or instances where I could almost get what she was going through without living the experience myself. However, it was that last line that really grabbed my attention, and I was almost sorry that it was the end of the book because then there was nothing more for me to follow.

Make-Up Post for Frederick Douglass

While reading The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I couldn't help but notice how his priorities were very apparent through his recollection of the past. To most of us, family is one of the most important things we think about. No matter what sort of relationship you have with your family members, it is difficult to see what life would be without them. Douglass establishes early on in his book that his mother was hardly present and his father's identity was uncertain. While sharing what brief moments he had with her before her death, he still seems very detached emotionally. However, while sharing the times where literacy was in his grasp, such as when he learned the ABC's, it is very obvious that this was a very important part of his life. Like I said, in our modern world it's hard to position literacy at a greater importance than our parents, which is what makes this part of Douglass' book so fascinating to me.

Here we see a great example of how powerful it was for slaves to learn how to read and write. It meant that they had a leg up on their owners and it could possibly end in being freed. Nowadays, learning to read is so common that many of us don't think of what it would be like to be considered inferior for not knowing how to read or write. Reading this narrative made me think a bit about just how much it would've meant to Douglass, or any slave from the time to be able to pick up a book and understand the writing in it. Especially where right now in my life, family has been one of my top priorities, it's interesting to see a perspective where something as simple as posting on a blog is considered a great part of life.

Italic vs. Non-italic

Page 192, "Yellowstone Park:"

Technically, this ought to precede "The Figures in the Clock," since it happened a year and a half before Miss Gowrie's play. But I have placed it here because in "Yellowstone Park" I seem older. This may have been because I was not in school. Also, in Medicine Springs, I was having to live up to a role that "grew me up" overnight. Once I was out of that curious wonderland where all the men were married, I shrank back to my nomral age."

I found this passage particularly interesting because it suggest that age is not really the same as the number of years which a person has lived; age can shift back and forth, from older to younger or younger to older, not in accordance with actual shifts in time. I thought this was remarkable because it suggests that, although McCarthy has not lied, she has readjusted chronology out of it's original order to make more chronological sense... a peculiar idea, but one that I find very appealing. I think that we may all experience moments when we feel older or younger than our "real" age, and I know that I have, so I felt I connected with this idea more than some others presented in this text.

How Memory Works

Mary McCarthy's final chapter begins with a series of memories regarding her grandmother. The further the memories are placed in the time, the less Mary remembers about them. The memories become more specific as they become more recent. This is a realistic representation of how the memory works. The further back in the time the memory is, the more trouble a person may have remember details. For example, Mary first recalls her grandmother's gray electric, the way it looked, and the many instances in which it pulled up to her house. The last memory in the series is specifically oriented around the time that her parents died of the flu. She remembers her grandmother's sobs. Then, she remembers a vision of her grandmother five years later when she returns to Seattle.

"I did not see her again until five years later, when she was standing in the depot in Seattle in a hat with a black dotted veil, pulled tight across her face, which was heavily rouged and powdered. By this time, I knew that she was my grandmother, that she was Jewish, and died her hair."
(Page 202)

Mary's memories become clearer as well as the amount of knowledge that she knows about her grandmother. Before this memory, Mary could barely note that she was related to her. Are there any other points in the autobiography in which you believe the writing mimics Mary's memory/ability to recall events and information?

~Megan

Ideas about Intersubjective Exchanges - Italic Disclaimers

Mary McCarthy – Memories of a Catholic Girlhood – Intersubjective Exchange – Patterns

“As an intersubjective mode, it lies outside a logical or juridical model of truth and falsehood, as models of the paradox of self-reference have suggested….” Smith & Watson (13)
««««««««««
from Smith & Watson: “But autobiographical truth is a different matter; it is an intersubjective exchange between narrator and reader aimed at producing a shared understanding of the meaning of life.”(13)
««««««««««

“If we approach self-referential
writing as an intersubjective process that occusr within the writer/reader pact, rather than a true-or-false story, the emphasis of reading shifts from assessing and verifying knowledge to observing processes of communicative exchange and understanding.” Smith & Watson (13)

To The Reader
Yonder Peasant , Who is He?
[“There are several dubious”…]
A Tin Butterfly
[“Uncle Harry tells me”….]
The Blackguard
[“This account is highly fictionalized…”]
C’est le Premier Pas Qui Coute
[“This story is so true….”]
Names
[“A good deal of stress has been laid…”]
The Figures in the Clock
[“There are some semi-fictional touches here.”]
Yellowstone Park
[“Except for the name of the town & the names
Of the people, this story is completely true.”]
Ask Me No Questions

Italics vs. Regular

Hopefully this is what we were supposed to post about..
I believe that Mary McCarthy uses the italics sections of her autobiography to be completely truthful. Perhaps McCarthy believed that if her entire autobiography was written as bluntly as the italics are, no one would want to read it. I very much enjoy reading the italic sections because it is the blunt truth about her life. I feel that during the italicized sections I get to know the real Mary McCarthy. I also find that her italicized sections are very humorous, perhaps because she is being so blunt. I think that the italics offset the "regular" writing in her autobiography.