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5.0 out of 5 stars Karr Voices Memoir Clearly
Writing a memoir evokes a special brand of fear. No matter how you approach the topic, the fear is that your life story is not worthy of being told and the mere attempt to tell it is to be guilty of exaggeration and pride. No matter how good the writing, the fear is that you do not stand in the company of presidents, kings, and celebrities. Against this fear, one can only aspire to write clearly with distinction and to seek out a good book or two to aid in this vain enterprise.In her book, The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr points to other motivations, somewhere between the writer “trying to make sense of the past” and “readers thirsty for reality” (xiv). Memoir invites the reader into the private life of the author in a verbal strip-tease, undertaken for catharsis or paid therapy (xxi). Something anyone can aspire to writing memoir, even if the readers may be limited to an immediate circle of friends and family. The primary requirement is having memories that you are willing to analyze against a particular theme and to share with readers. These memories need not be absolute truth, but they need to be spoken with an authentic voice.Karr emphasizes voice as the authenticator of good memoir, writing: “Each great memoir lives or dies based 100 percent on voice.” (35) The truth of memoir is not absolute—sworn on a Bible—truth, but rather a more interesting subjective truth—truth told with an authentic voice. It is subjective, in part, because we lie more often to ourselves than we do to other people. Karr validates her own accounts with the people she writes about (5). It is interesting, in part, because an authentic voice embeds the veils that we use to cover our inadequacies. Uncovering the veils and exposing the lies they cover up is painful, as Karr explains: “You have to lance a boil and suffer its stench as infection drains off.” (12) Yet, this catharsis liberates our true selves, a necessary step in healing and in personal growth, as Karr admits: “I often barely believe myself, for I grew up suspicious of my own perceptions” (22).Part of authentic voice is admitting your motivation in writing. Karr argues: “Unless you confess your own emotional stakes in a project, why should a reader have any?” (97) While this advice might seem to be a terribly female observation to make—why can’t I just lay out my hypothesis, you say?—communications professors often admonish their students that complete communication requires both an idea and an emotion. Authenticity requires complete expression—why is that hypothesis so important that you spent at least a year examining it in great detaiI? Chances are good that the emotional stake is already substantial and its substance needs only to be recognized in your writing. A novelist might refer to this stake as an emotional hook to grab the reader.Karr’s voice shows ironic tension. She is consciously literary—dropping great quotes from famous memoirists and dotting her work with cutesy new ways of expression. The tension arises when you see her photographed wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots more fitting of her Texas upbringing. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” as Shakespeare writes in Hamlet. Voiced tension is a source of conflict and, as such, is interesting.Cowboy boots aside, Karr writes prescriptively in 24 chapters, each with its own theme. A particularly important theme in her writing comes in chapter 6: Sacred Carnality. While one’s mind naturally runs to carnal, as in carnal knowledge, Karr uses carnal to mean sensual in description, as in the five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling (71). For those of us more comfortable in non-fiction, analytical writing, this carnality is necessarily forced, as she readily admits (75). By utilizing carnal description to move the action, dialog can be used more like a spotlight.Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir is helpful addition to any writer’s library. Karr’s cites from numerous famous memoirists(check out the appendix listing) aptly makes the point that memoir is a wider genre than the usual political and celebrity autobiographies, and the creative potential in memoir is greater than the usual A-B-C chronologies. I would never have guessed, for example, that a favorite film of mine, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) was based on a memoir by William Herr: Dispatches (1977). Karr’s book has already encouraged me to purchase a memoir that she recommended ; it has been a great encouragement in my own memoir project; and I have already gifted this book to a friend. Great book; read it.ReferencesAngelou, Maya. 2009. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Ballantine Books.Herr, William. 1977. Dispatches. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
5.0 out of 5 stars A nuts and bolts look at writing (and reading) memoir.
Reading this proved to be a great exercise in raising personal memories and life reflections. Written more for the memoir writer; however, it provides a useful bunch of tools for reading memoirs as well.
4.0 out of 5 stars Perplexing Excellence
It is odd these days when the work of our most celebrated writers goes unedited or is edited by people too young or too narrowly experienced or too timid in the face of reputation to catch entire realms of error - All contemporary published writers suffer from this, present subject included. All writers need an editor and there are very few left in the publishing world. Robert Caro goes un-edited, Stephen Jay Gould, David Foster Wallace - no editor in sight. Forests would have been spared and legions of readers spared countless pages, if editors had done their job.Memoir brought Mary Karr to the barn dance of big-time American letters and she waltzes away with New Journalism. A book called “The Art of Memoir” might reserve its key “THIS is how it’s done” chapter to a memoir. Michael Herr’s “Dispatches” is a great book by any measure, but it is not a memoir. “Dispatches” owes more to Norman Mailer’s non-fiction than to Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Wright or Maya Angelou. A memoir is personal through and through: personal part of town, personal events, personal slant, personal enlightenment. In “Dispatches” Michael Herr shares the nightmare swamp of the Vietnam War with millions of U.S. soldiers. New Journalism implies that author’s private, personal, quirky, memoiresque take on the events is a central piece of the machinery. It is weird when an organization or a prominent person marginalizes the genre at hand to celebrate a genre containing an example of flat-out better writing, though from another species. See: American Society of Illustrators awarding their Gold Medal to an abstract expressionist piece of commercial art causing 99% of membership working in a realistic or quasi-realistic vein to go “WTF?” See: Woody Allen on “clubs”In our current PC climate, 30 years in the brewing, a time when child molesters are vilified, imprisoned, cast out of the social order, to spend a chapter singing the praises of smarmy, aristocratic seducer par-excellence, Vladimir Nabokov is sleepy. Vlad loses more cred for his lubricious attempts at seductive scintillating syntax than to his praise of predation upon the underaged. Is kissing Vlad’s ring still a requirement in all academia.“The Art of Memoir” is an excellent guide to memoir writing and to any sort of writing. MK’s emphasis on the act of re-writing - revision is worth ten times the price of the book. “The Art of Memoir” is brimming with wisdom old and new.
Good guidance
Good material! I like how the author expresses her ideas, even when she tells stories non-linearly, which happens at many moments. It gives a personal and unique tone to her narrative and opinions.
If you want to write memoir, this is a handbook on how to do it. Highly recommended.
Mary Karr shows you how to nail voice, by showing you hers. She dissects Nabokov's technique, and line by line, Michael Kerr's Dispatches. She explains what to leave in, and what to leave out, discusses mining for truth, getting out of your own way, and avoiding bringing your readers down. This is a masterclass in writing memoir. Highly recommended.
Memoirs are becoming popular
I found Mary Karr's book helpful to me in understanding issues and matters to consider when writing my memoir. I greatly appreciated her knowledge.
Beyond Expectations
This is not a how to manual for writing novices. However, it is an incredible, well-written, well-organized, powerful exposition on the creative genius and hard work behind good memoir writing. It should be necessary reading for any memoirist; however, it is also a fascinating illumination for avid readers on what makes a memoir (or fiction) work well. Using exemplary examples from great memoirists, Karr illustrates her ideas with clarity. I was compelled to add some memoirs to my wish list whose subject matter I wouldn't ordinarily be interested in. Immediately after finishing this book, I began reading an autobiography that I'd been excited about. From the beginning, I found myself wishing the author had read The Art of Memoir.
Full of great writing advice!
I first borrowed this book from my library but had to get my own copy. After reading Mary's great advice, I knew I would be referring to this book over and over. There are so many gems in here, I think all writers, whether writing a memoir or not, will benefit from reading this book. Mary has a great sense of humour which also makes this a fun read!
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The Art of Memoir
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