A memoir is more of a challenge to read because it relies so heavily and obviously on the authors personal experience. This does not often translate into a shared experience, or even one that can be understood. Or emphasized with. So much of the way that an author can control the openness of the story is through a careful voice; it must be crafted in a way that allows the reader to enter the foreign world of the text. Vivian Gornick took the interesting approach of filling her narrative with open scorn, distaste, and dismissiveness. Many times in this book, I had to stop to wonder why I, the reader, should care at all about these things that Gornick clearly has contempt for.
The walks that Gornick takes with her mother-walks that she has admitted to fabricating in part-are wrought with so much open dismissal on the part of her and her mother that I found the overall voice of the text to be off putting. I hated Gornick and couldn't care at all about her family, her story, her silly life. Still, there must be a reason why she chose this voice. All things being intentional, the choice to use such a negative voice had to be deliberate. I grew up in the same sort of family as Gornick. These people and phrases were familiar to me. So was this way of thinking; this brushing off of all things different or new or even silly. I found it strange that even at the end, in her small moment of awareness, Gornick refuses to really learn anything from her own life, and from her mother. Acceptance comes very late, and begrudgingly so.
The voice must function as that part of ever person that does not want to change, that resists love and sentiment and newness. The voice that Gornick uses must be the voice that she longs to leave behind. I have to believe that. I have to, because I found this memoir so overbearingly negative that I refuse to allow it to end without knowing that Gornick was just using that negativity to show us the way not to be. To show us how to move on with our lives. Near the end, she echos the sentiment that has been felt throughout this narrative of misses chances, "We sit together then, silent, not embroiled with each other, two women only staring into the obscurity of all that lost life."
Perhaps I am still reading this wrong. Perhaps I am reading this as if it is a novel, with endings wrapped up and lessons learned. Maybe this is a memoir about how not to win, but to go on despite. Still, there was such a wall in front of this text. Gornick knew it was there; she put it up deliberately. She quotes her friend as saying to her (echoing my opinion) "You were always so critical. For such a little kid you were amazing. It's like you knew you were always seeing how silly or pointless or ridiculous-your favorite word-everything was." I understand this, because that is how I felt reading this. The voice in this memoir is so superior, so alienating and hard, that I could not muster up the strength to care about this persons life. A life filled with things that she herself repeatedly called 'ridiculous.' Educational, well crafted, maybe, but there was absolutely no joy or genuine love in that life, and for that this voice filled me with pity, though I struggle to even give it that much concern. If Gornick couldn't bother, than why should I?
Welcome to the Blog for Craft of Creative Non-Fiction at Mills, English 226, Fall 2011. Here is where you write your reader responses for the books we are reading this semester. These responses examine the scaffolding of the book in regards to presence and identity of the narrator. Don't forget to respond to your colleagues' blogs as well.
so tell us how you really feel :)
ReplyDeletein all seriousness, i appreciate this, diana. it never occured to me to not care - perhaps because my positionality as writer is different? it seems to me that some lives just aren't filled with joy or genuine love. perhaps what holds my interest are the traces of genuineness, the moments when vivian allows herself to love everyone, even her mother, even if just for a moment.
sometimes, things just don't go/end well - and many people know that in my writing i try to tie things up too often, and it can be all the more stifling given the nature of the material.
thanks for your post,
michellelouise
You're post brings up an interesting point; in order for a story to have impact, at least for many readers, its characters should be in some way sympathetic or relatable. I, for one, love fiction and nonfiction stories in which I can truly sympathize with or at least admire the main character. In this work, that isn't easy. What kept my interest in this particular story was the way in which the author's mother so directly impacted her life's entire trajectory.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't relate to the author's (or rather the narrator's) distain for others, her approach to relationships or even friendships for that matter (I kept wondering how, with an attitude like hers, she even had any friends), but I was intrigued by how she became that way, and ultimately how she tried (and in many ways failed) to crawl out from under her mother's shadow and realize her full potential as an individual.
Thanks for these thoughts!
i actually had a really similar reaction and addressed it in my blog post. it's interesting, because reading your post really made me think deeper into it though and ask "what did i take away from this memoir?" since you make it clear that you think Gornick took nothing away from her own life story. i have a straining relationship with my own mother and often throughout the reading, saw moments where her mother reminded me of my own. so what did i take away from this? honestly, it made me realize that i need to be more patient with my own mother, and more kind, and try to learn more from her, so that i don't end up like Gornick. you pose the idea that perhaps this memoir is telling us how not to be, and if that is indeed the case, than i am going to take Gornick up on her advice.
ReplyDelete-kris
This is an interesting discussion generated by Diana's short but potent post. She brings up an important distinction between a memoir and a novel. Memoirs don't necessarily have plots or actions that even lead to other actions. They are slices of life and in that slice, we live with the characters, their world and their perspective. If there is a plot, like say, surviving cancer, there still has to be a greater depth to the story, the personal journey is interior and has only one goal--to get enlightened to the self.
ReplyDeletee
Thanks for this post Diana. My experience is similar to Jenn's blog comment regarding how the author's mother directly impacted her life. I think the author gave authentic agency to Nettie, her mother and the other women in the building which made me as the reader focus on the women and not so much the narrator’s immaturity and selfishness. I think the author was intentional with her focus for such a forceful agency, energy and vitality to all her women in the building. I can relate to your experience also because I was less interested in the narrator’s transitions or transformations or what she would ultimately learn from her women although I would have to disagree that the author didn't ultimately hve revelation and transform (when she realized she became just like her mother in her relationship with Stefan). I was frustrated more than a couple of times. I had sympathy for the women who were deeply struggling. Perhaps the reader takes away an understanding of the mother’s circumstances and dilemmas, that they both suffered deep contradictions and unresolved feelings about each other and their choices. It’s rare that I find such rich and interesting stories of women in community. But I understand your frustration. For the most part I think the author wanted her mother to be somebody or something that she could not, and I wanted to tell the narrator to "grow up!". This desire or expectation on her mother caused unrest and many contradictions. But, I felt the memoir successfully gave readers this building of women with fully developed voices. The memoir reminded me on how complex women are in the first place. And these complexities in the women carried the memoir for me.
ReplyDelete