memoir = diet autobiography..... i beg to differ!

just coming from class, there are a few ideas freshly floating around in my mind.

in the beginning, we dismissed "memoir" from our intangible class list of important-sometimes-not-real-words. i believe the reason was that 'memoir' is not a literary term, whereas autobiography is. in defense of memoir, i'd like to say that that type of black and white reasoning is not satisfactory enough for me to strike 'memoir' from our list of important terms/ideas to consider. not only do i believe the term 'memoir' evokes quite a different definition than 'autobiography' does, but i also think that almost all written works should be considered valid under some kind of appreciation for creation.

explaining these two points . . . . when i think of what a memoir is in comparison to what an autobiography encompasses, the great weight of difference is in the content, its translation, and the portrayal of all involved persons. for me, a memoir is like a written memory. it focuses on a specific time or event in someones life and is retold through a foggy lense of subjective perceptions and influencing emotions. i feel as though they are mostly concerned with repainting the experiences of the person writing them, by way of a natural embellishment that comes with the filter of memory. we scarcely remember moments from a strictly objective point of view, and so while we are recounting actions of a true event, 'ourselves' will always heavily influence those recreations, whether we know it or not. i also think memoirs focus more strongly on the main character, rather than those surrounding them. while sometimes it is necessary to include information about others in order to gain a better sense of context, i think memoirs stay closer to their owners.

autobiographies on the other hand, evoke a more factual foundation for me. i feel as though they are the moments and events of someones life, laid out on the page in form and analysis. though authors of autobio.'s also utilize that subjective filter of perception to relay their messages and meanings, i think the moments were first created to serve an objective purpose. i suppose i think that autobiographies are more limiting than a memoir. i also expect them to be longer and to provide a more 'complete' look at whats happened in the life of the writer. i'm not saying that one is better than the other, just that i think memoir is as valid a way to write about ones self as autobiography is. . . . .

Boland: Searching for an Identity

"My solitude was circumstantial. I had returned to Ireland in my teens; I had no knowledge of the Irish language. Therefore, I had to do the General Certificate of the British system. I was an erratic, hit-and-miss student, averse to discipline and hardly able to connect my intense reading of poetry with any other part of my studies." page 73

I found this passage interesting for a few reasons. The first is the fact that she had no knowledge of the Irish Language; was it because she had left, or was it because she grew up while Ireland was still struggling to escape the grasp of the British, however loose it may have been at that point? Also, I think it's worthy to note that she found no interest in any subject but poetry, as she became such a prominent female poet in a patriarchal society (especially in Irish literature). I also think it's strange that she couldn't connect poetry with anything else, considering many poets find their subject matter in everything, including the mundane.

It's a nice transition from the previous chapter, "In Search of a Nation" to this one, "In Search of a Language." Boland is constantly searching for an identity, which is reflected in this memoir as well as her poetry, and is a common thread we've seen through all of the autobiographies we've read so far.

i apologize for the disruption of chronology...

but there was something i wanted to point out in danticats "brother i'm dying" during a class , when we ran out of time to get around to the whole room. we were discussing the private v.s the public and finding specific examples of that in the text.

on page 171, danticat retells her uncles experience of waking up to gunfire and chaos; the day the government tried to eradicate the gangs from the city by force. though she herself was not a part of the experience, she gave great details about the day and the actions of her uncle. What struck me, was when she spoke about her uncle looking around at all the debris and destruction, and thought to himself how he was happy his wife was deceased so that should wouldn't have to witness such horrible conditions.

for me, to be greatful of someones death is quite a heavy thought. in my opinion, to have a sincere thought like that would require an incredible amount of love and concern for the deceased person and an unimaginable state of pain for whomever is having the thought. having considered how deep an emotion like that is, i would like to know why Danticat would write something like that.

i think the only way for that statement about her uncle to be true, would be if he had actually admitted this to her. i dont believe that's a kind of emotion you can assume about someone. for me this ties into the private v.s. public because it is exactly that. it is the incredibly personal idea of someone other than the writer, being made extremely public, in attempts to portray the private aspects of the author.

the fact that danticat was not even present during that moment in her uncles life is crucial to this story working for her autobiography. not physically being there allows her to become an omnipresent entity for the retelling, which grants her access to really private information. this personal aspect of her uncle in turn, shapes the image of herself. i think it's incredibly intriguing how she separates herself in order to get closer.

and thats all i have to say about that!
sorry its so outdated.....

Language

Apparently this is my semester to become obsessed with language in text. As I read all of the texts for this class I have been so struck by how each other uses language in their texts. While reading Danticat and Nabokov I noticed their uses of language because they used more than one language in their texts. After noticing this I began to look at how they used the English language to strengthen their works. Did they use short sentences? Periodic sentences? Poor grammar? Once I began to think about the seemingly simple aspects of language the texts became so much more than words in phrases.
While reading Kazin I began to think about my language theme again while reading pages 22-23. In these pages Kazin describes how difficult it was for him to speak. It is interesting for me to think about writing down the difficulties of speech...
I think I'll stop rambling now : )

A trip to NYC through Kazin

Similar to what Casey was saying about having these same memories, I can find myself in Kazin's novel but not as an immigrant. Every time I visit New York City, as a tourist, I am always completely fascinated in my surroundings. While reading A Walker in the City, I could picture exactly what he was talking about. Not by location, but rather by senses and his feelings towards it. Especially coming from a small state in a relatively small city, NYC has a different atmosphere and life of its own. Though I couldn't imagine living there, it is always a treat to regain the same sense of wonderment as I walk down each street.

As soon as I started reading Kazin's memoir, I felt like I was talking to a member of the family. It was weird, but I think it was because of the Eastern European background. I was raised in a Ukrainian family and everything that Kazin talks about in his childhood, the feelings for religion (I was raised Catholic), the fact that no one was ever allowed to go hungry and most poignantly, that his parents wanted him to be better than they were in their new country, could have been straight out of my first years. It can be strange when a memoir seems to tell you your own memories but it is fascinating at the same time. It definitely bridges time to hear these stories but also offers a way to connect.

Kazin's Use of Place as an Agent to Memory

Kazin is constantly conjuring memories through his observations of places he once knew. Geoffrey Douglass utilized props as his agent to memories, so perhaps that is what Kazin is doing in his autobiography. Kazin often describes a specific place, in which he spent time during his childhood or adolescence and then recalls exactly what occurred in those places. The places actually help Kazin introduce plotlines (mostly in the form of short anecdotal stories) and even some characters.

“In the darkness you could never se where the crane began. We liked to trap the enemy between the slabs and sometimes jumped them from great mounds of rock just in from the quarry. A boy once fell to his death that way, and they put a watchman there to keep us out. This made the slabs all the more impressive to me, and I always aimed first for that yard whenever we played follow-the-leader” (Page 87).

This is an instance in Kazin’s autobiography where he is able to take a place that he was familiar with and transform that place into a mirror that reflected his insides and what he was like as person, or what he is like in the present. A boy fell to his death in the quarry and yet, Kazin can’t help but still want to play there. From this little story in this particular place, we learn that Kazin was (and perhaps still is) a risk-taker of sorts and that he had a certain amount of respect for dangerous places. The quarry caused someone to die, and Kazin is enamored with that place’s natural power.

Kazin and I Agree that "Character" is Crap

"Character. I always felt anxious when I heard the word pronounced. Satisfactory as my ‘character’ was, on the whole, except when I stayed too long in the playground reading; outrageously satisfactory, as I can see now, the very sound of the word as out teachers coldly gave it out from the end of their teeth, with a solemn weight on each dark syllable, immediately struck my heart cold with fear—they could not believe I really had it. Character was never something you had; it had to be trained in you, like a technique. I was never very clear about it” (Page 20)

Me either, Alfred. Lack of “character” is the whole reason I was never inducted into my National Honor Society at my high school. It was a load of crap, let me tell you. I graduated fifth in my class, performed multitudes of community service work, especially with the community theatre troupe in town, and I served on Student Council. I had been the Foreign Language Student of the Year, and I had been named Social Studies Student of the Month three times. Yet, lack of character, that’s what killed me. I took that to heart for awhile, and I still don’t think I understand it completely. How can someone have a lack of character? How could Alfred’s teachers not believe he had character? What exactly is this ambiguous term, “character,” comprised of? Is it integrity? Is it enthusiasm? Is it a sense of self-value? Does it mean being an absolute brown-noser? I don’t think I’ll ever know. Alfred goes on to say that he believes character is related to (or maybe really is) the definition for unwavering obedience. I think I may agree with that, because though I participated in plenty of extracurricular activities and spoke up for the student body, I caused controversy. I was vocal. I didn’t let things die. I was a rebel-rouser, in some cases. I think that is something that my high school couldn’t take. Shame. Shame. Shame…

The Classmates

I found the chapter "Familiar Strangers" from The Classmates to be very engrossing. It is interesting to see how the reconnecting of old classmates helped the writer to reflect on not only his past at this school, but who he used to be and who he came to become. The emails of his old schoolmates helped to bring back memories of these years he had long since forgotten, and if it hadn't been for this compilation of stories and remembrances, he may never have been able to recall any of them. This is why some find it helpful to keep journals, or even just take pictures. You capture a moment of time as it happens so that you can look back on it later and piece together the snapshots of your life. His classmates were his photographs and journal entries and helped to bring back those times that had faded into the background over the years.

The Classmates..

It has been awhile since I have been as engrossed in a piece of literature as I was in The Classmates. I believe my interest in the text was due to the fact that it was so easy to relate to. Although I have only been away from high school for three years I can already look back and see the different groups that were created, and how people have changed since their graduation. I was struck by how memory is used throughout the reading. It is as though memory is a gift that allows us to reconnect and to remember the past. I don't believe that any of our other texts have been as explicit in discussing how memory has made an impact on their lives. I am sure that all of the authors have discussed this at one point or another, but perhaps this text stood out to me the most because I was able to relate to it the most. Anyway...I really enjoyed it!

Ann Page Stecker for Katharine Black

 katharine c black said...

Dear Autobiography Class,

Thank you for your interest and particularly for your generosity in class yesterday. Your questions were apt and interesting, and Dear Autobiography Class Members—
engaging for me to answer and continue to think about.

I did think of an additional comment to one question someone asked about process, about the way I learned to write dialogue, or some other "how to" question. In fact, I wrote letters for years and years, not just thank-you notes, and formal notes, but conversations to a willing reader, whom i called Letter Reader. I wrote out theories, conversations, and responses and reactions to the hate letters. I actually didn't know for years whether the Reader, read my letters, because there was never any overt response. Occasionally there would be some form of "check-in" but that regular, daily, self-analysis and checking out puzzles and problems in writing turned out to be the writing practice I'd not had in more formal settings. I articulated my responses and feelings in those letters, as though in a journal, but less self-consciously since i wrote them and sent them off immediately, and then they were gone. However, because there really was an active reader, I did work on increasing clarity and sharpness of presentation. Since it was in the format of letters, it turned out that I had been practicing dialogue all that time, and it turned out I was comfortable writing both narrative as well as conversations.

I'd thought that there was a day on which I began to write the pieces you all saw chunks of, but then it occurred to me that I'd been writing regularly for years. What was different for me, was choosing to write something I wanted to be read by others. I had actually already begun to build the tools by which to do that in regular, almost daily, writing of some kind.

I wish you each and all every success and joy in the projects and directions you choose. Thank you for your hospitality yesterday.

Peace to you each,

Katharine