Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock
Thursday, March 11, 2004. What does it say about a person when, first, they continue to carry on about years’ old problems as if they were fresh and, second, they evidently feel a need to tell people about them? It’s evidence perhaps of this being the memoir-and-Oprah age of self-revelation or confession being a curative, or just entertainment.
That puts it too simply and a little inaccurate. Oprah Winfrey is very good at that sort of thing on her show, but lots of other programs did it first. Phil Donahue comes to mind.
Memoir is a construct. At its best and most sincere, the form does attempt non-fiction, but it comes down to one person’s view and thus is by definition, tautologically, limited. So why does it sell so well? Why is memoir now being taught, for credit and in continuing ed? OK, it’s fun, sometimes instructive to get inside the head of someone else. But you can look at yourself, especially if you write, and admit with little thought that what you put down at any one time is just a piece of what’s racing around your head.
Is fiction better? For entertainment and enlightenment yes, because it has the luxury, the permission, of being well-considered by the writer. The fiction writer is not constrained by truth because he or she is aware that any reporting of any truth is merely a reflection of a side of truth that can be communicated at just one instant. The storyteller can use all perspectives, often trying to get to the same end of creating a complete story.
One confusion comes in when storytellers are assumed to be closet memoirists, denying the possibilities of imagination to make sense of the world. And so on. -30-
