presley
A group of accomplished writers I pal around with in the virtual world recently discussed a long’ish essay about … well, about growing up under tough circumstances, which seems to be one of the primary themes within the genre. (Augusten Burroughs and A Wolfe at the Table, anyone?)
My reaction? I jumped into the fray waving the flag of anti-narcissism. So the author had a crappy childhood? As Mr Tolstoy said, “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
That she has made literature of it is good. That she has taught me to care, I’m not sure; or at least, I don’t care any more than I might about any other child growing up in similar circumstances. That she can write elegantly about the issue – granting that she may feel more deeply, feel more pain than a person less intelligent or sophisticated – surely provides some reconciliation unavailable to the less intelligent or talented.
Each time I stumble across creative nonfiction in a similar vein – and there’s millions of little pieces of that I had it tougher than you literature out there – I wonder “Is too much of our genre too centered on navel-gazing? And, the corollary question: “Is navel-gazing the antithesis of an intellectual pursuit?”
Or to put it another way, “Does the genre rely too much on memoir to be intellectually-influential in the way society perceives useful intellectualism?”
Or to put it a third way, “Are we memorists and navel-gazers getting a free ride on the coat-tails of John McPhee, Barry Lopez, Lewis Thomas, Edward Abbey, Edward Hoagland, Richard Selzer, Paul Theroux, et al?
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Gary Presley
http://garypresley.blogspot.com/
http://www.garypresley.net/
July 7, 2008 at 8:37 am
I wonder how much “I had it so bad” literature is just wishful thinking?
Paradoxical perhaps, but worth considering . . .
Brian
July 7, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Kid Rock said Vanilla Ice ruined his (Kid’s) chances at success for a few years. I wonder if the same analogy applies today. Are we being fed crap by the corporate types that is resulting in the labeling of memoir writing as being narcissistic navel gazing?
I don’t see the issue as being a genre problem (re: memoir). I’ve never believed that. This “navel gazing” crap is spewed by those who have lazily swallowed the Vanilla Ice versions of memoir writing marketed to us by those who think we all love the same kind of stuff (Paris Hilton’s sexual positions, day-time talk shows, etc).
The genre isn’t the problem. What’s being promoted is the problem (which leads to more crap as would-be writers copy the style of the crap being marketed and publishers copy publishers and…well, you get the idea).
Memoir isn’t by definition “nasal gazing” anymore than you can label ALL reporting to be of the Hollywood Extra type. First-person accounts that pull us in to the larger world and its contexts are much more powerful (to me) than the best third-person reporting that can be done.
But is there bad writing out there–writing that doesn’t do anything but exploit a self-contained event or occurrence that is nothing more than a voyeuristic peak inside a person’s life? sure.
But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. That’s like saying hammers are bad because someone used one to club someone in the head or something.
July 7, 2008 at 2:27 pm
All memoir is not navel gazing just as all navel gazing is not memoir. Those who want to paint all memoir with too wide a brush are — for whatever reason — bothered by honesty. But honesty is what sets us free.
That said, there are navel gazing memoirs out there, and they aren’t very good. Looking at one’s own problems outside of a greater context is not ambitious or powerful writing.
July 7, 2008 at 7:50 pm
That’s what I was trying to say, Dinty. But you’re much more succinct than I am
July 8, 2008 at 11:51 am
For the record, I find a lot of Richard Selzer’s writing to be I-centered memoir…the difference (as far as him seeming to be more respected and all) is that he’s a brain surgeon (or whatever) and not a blue-collar alcoholic. Somehow makes his memoir stuff more palatable, literary, and worthy I guess.
Don’t get me wrong: I love Richard Selzer’s writing. Love it. Just saying…
July 9, 2008 at 10:20 am
I guess this topic has pushed my buttons, so to speak. Another pet peeve I have is this notion purported by Quindlen and others that third-person POV and “reporting” results in stories more truthful and factual.
Facts aren’t easily and equally reported in either memoir or third-person reporting: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
The issue–and here is where “reporting” is no better–is in the interpretation of what happened. In other words, how is it any more “factual” for a reporter to report what a source said than it is for the source to report it to us directly first person? In the former, there is an extra screen and filter the information has traveled through: the reporter!
Human sources are human sources are human sources: it matters not if the human source is telling the story directly or has decided he or she should will share the story third-hand through a reporter.
The only difference is window dressing.
July 9, 2008 at 12:31 pm
One size definitely doesn’t fit all, despite Tolstoy’s familial description. But I suggest a navel-gazing memoir can have intellectual influence only if it reflects a greater truth. Too many (as noted) are accepted as “important” simply because of a rancid recitation sex, drugs, and rock’n'roll.
As to Selzer and “I” trouble, how else could he offer such deep insights into the human condition except through his own prism (practicing the art of medicine)?
~ Gary
July 9, 2008 at 1:04 pm
It’s that “greater truth” that’s key here, I think. For me, that’s the problem with people like Frey (sorry to bring him up again) or these memoirs that are only bemoaning pain (and the occasional glory) – they don’t reach beyond themselves. In the world beyond pages, we already have people in pain that we love and try to care for; we don’t need that in writing. What we need are people who can take that pain and transcend it so that it sprinkles down on the rest of us.
Alice Sebold’s Lucky does this for me.
July 9, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Gary, I agree.
The problem is that whenever we’ve been treated to a bad memoir the entire genre itself gets skewered by critics. I’m not sure I know of any other genre where that happens.
Again, there are BAD ______________(fill in the blank with whatever genre you like). Each story should be judged on its own merits and not looked at as representing the credibility (or lack thereof) of the overall genre.
Memoir writing is a valid and powerful tool–with just as much ethos as any genre out there. The issue is how it’s done (as with any story attempted within any genre).
July 10, 2008 at 4:39 am
Gary, you’ve brought up something that I had noticed as well but not focused on. I think the point here is not about generalizing the memoir or CNF genre, but about some of its content. There’s always good and bad, and levels in between in any genre of writing. But I agree with Gary that just portraying a tough life alone is not what makes a good memoir. It has to contain some meaning and value or lesson or view for the reader to take away from it. And having a tough life, and being able to write about it eloquently does not an intellectual make (though it appears to do so, from what we observe).
July 10, 2008 at 10:37 am
I’m not sure about all this talk of intellectualizing in memoir.
Maybe that works for some writers, but I’m glad that Tim O’Brien doesn’t intellectualize about Vietnam; Nick Flynn doesn’t intellectualize about homelessness; or Frank McCourt doesn’t intellectualize about poverty. When I read memoir, I want to lose myself in a heartfelt experience. Nothing will make me toss a book across the room quicker than moralizing, intellectualizing, or (God help me) psychoanalysis. Leave that to others, I say.
A memoir ought to be honest and above all genuine. Memoirists aren’t responsible for the circumstances of their lives but for thoughtfully reporting their story. Some experiences just don’t lend themselves to intellectualizing. Alice Sebold’s rape springs to mind. How would you cast that story as anything but a survivor’s tale?
July 10, 2008 at 1:12 pm
You could say that all good writing starts with navel gazing (i.e. a writer’s obsessions or passions), but there’s the navel and then there’s the way the writer gazes at it and, ultimately, helps direct your gaze beyond it. And here I’m borrowing shamelessly from Vivian Gornick’s book, The Situation and the Story.
If you haven’t read it (and I highly recommend doing so), Gornick discerns between the situation (what happened on the surface) and the story (what the writer creates while attempting to make sense of what happened). It’s never the navel itself for me, and in fact, the more wondrous or barbaric the navel seems to be, the less interested I usually am, probably because the writer often relies too much on the shock of it to hold my interest.
I should add as a caveat that I rarely read full-length memoirs anymore. (I’ll take recommendations but should warn you that I didn’t even make it through the highly regarded “Liar’s Club”!) The ceaseless long-haul of ‘this happened, then this, then this’ leaves me breathlessly paddling to get back to the land I came from, having lost all hope that the writer is leading me to some new, thought-provoking shore. Shorter pieces often seem more successful to me, maybe because, like runts, they have to work harder at justifying their place in the pack. Or maybe it’s just easier for me to take such stories in small doses.
I realize that much relies on personal taste and even personality. A friend recently helped me describe the type of person, and by extension, type of reader I am. We were commiserating about being internal people living in an external world, and he said, “I enjoy being with people only if I also have time to be quiet and think about how much I enjoy being with them, why I enjoy being with them, and how much I look forward to being with them the next time.” And then he grinned mischievously and added, “Or not!”
July 11, 2008 at 2:59 pm
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July 11, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Tim, I’m glad you brought up Nick Flynn. This thread has had me thinking about my recent reading, which includes both his “A Bullshit Night In Suck City” and Nicholas Davidoff’s “The Crowd Sounds Happy.” These two books tell very similar stories: I was a boy, my father was mentally ill, I was raised by a cash-strapped single mother, I love baseball.
In spite of all that, the two have very little in common on the page. The authors’ writing styles are miles apart, as is the understanding they bring to the stories they tell. Having read one did not detract from reading the other. (Okay, I skipped some of the baseball in Davidoff’s book, having had my fill of it in Flynn’s and in the latest issue of CNF. For Pete’s sake, can’t someone write about football once in a while?)
I’m not sure it’s polite to quote someone on their own blog, but as Dinty Moore says, there is experience and then there is artifact. And isn’t memoir really all about the latter? It’s not that I want to know what the author has lived, it’s that I want to know how s/he has lived it.
July 16, 2008 at 10:52 am
[...] Gary Presley has recently been wondering about the state of Creative Nonfiction over at Brevity’s Creative Nonfiction Blog. He asks, “Is too much of our genre too centered on [...]