Comments on: Defending Memoir, or, The Problem with Taylor

By: Kyle Everett

Kyle Everett — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 08:39:27 +0000

Why the need to categorize and divide?? What does an avocado have in common with an orange? Both taste great.

By: liz

liz — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:11:35 +0000

Publishing a memoir takes guts. To me there is nothing better than a powerful memoir that shocks you, excites you, or inspires you!

By: Andrew Altschul

Andrew Altschul — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:08:18 +0000

Are you kidding, Murray? Batman would totally fuck Jason’s shit up.

By: Murray Perrine

Murray Perrine — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:06:10 +0000

I suppose Antrim’s piece was kind of silly, but that special silly that happens in arguments where great literary truths become secret surrogates for matters of preference or taste. Much writing about writing has this special sheen to it, the sprinkling of hyperbole, the fighting of the good fight that doesn’t need to be. I guess I don’t much like writing about writing, unless it is writing about writing that I like. Go figure.

Generally, as fights over imagined boundaries and make-believe qualities go, I prefer the sort where at question is who would win in a fight between a particular super-hero and a movie monster. Batman versus Jason– there you got something.

By: David Gordon

David Gordon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:14:03 +0000

I don’t see how memoirs are easier to write, but perhaps they are easier to sell. People who are not inherently interested in books see reading something “true” as less of a waste of their valuable time. I am just the opposite: As a self-abosrbed, introverted, arty bookish type, I am deeply interested in literature and completely uninterested in the real lives of people I don’t even know–unless their telling of their lives becomes literature. That for me is the only deciding factor. In addition to the titles listed by others,and obvious folks like Rousseau, I would place in this pile: Speak Memory – Nabakov, My Last Sigh-Bunuel, Beneath the Underdog – Charles Mingus, and the fascinating All I Need Is Love by Klaus Kinski. Also I really laughed a lot at my friend Oran’s book, Long Past Stopping, but being interested in a friend’s memoir is different, I suppose. On the other hand, I guess there are some moments when, as a novelist, I could complain about the drudgery having to make everything up myself, but then maybe I need to get out more and do something worth remembering.

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:07:00 +0000

What’s that old story about the poet who couldn’t figure out how to write about the most painful events of her life until she constricted her feelings into an archaic and elaborate poetic form? “One Art”? And she’s hardly alone. Meanwhile, others don’t need or want that constriction, or maybe just not all the time, but it does often have that effect.

By: Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:42:08 +0000

I think, Elisa, in the context of the entire piece it’s fairly obvious how you’re misreading it, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s just obvious to me.

I also think free verse can just as powerful as form, as I’ve already stated, which doesn’t contradict, I think, the effect of “form on poetry, setting up a challenge that often forces creativity and makes the work more powerful than free verse.”

By: Elisa

Elisa — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:02:34 +0000

“I am not stating in this essay that free verse is better/more powerful than formal poetry. You can choose to read it that way but it’s a misreading and out of context.”

I didn’t read it that way. I read exactly what you wrote, which is this: “This one rule has the effect of form on poetry, setting up a challenge that often forces creativity and makes the work more powerful than free verse.”

You stated that _form_ is more powerful than free verse, and that’s what I’m contesting. I think free verse can be just as powerful as form, just as a memoir can be just as powerful as a novel. I don’t see how I’m misreading anything or taking it out of context.

By: Brian Spears

Brian Spears — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:22:18 +0000

Viktor,
James Frey might have proved that at one time it was easier to get memoir published than fiction, but he also might have screwed the pooch for future memoirists, him along with the other writers who were busted before their books came out end embarrassed their publishers. Of course, I write neither, so I don’t have any real sense of what’s easier or harder to publish. I know from talking to my writer friends that no one outside of celebrities (writerly or otherwise) is having an easy time getting their books into print, so maybe the difficulty is all relative.

By: Vicki Gundrum

Vicki Gundrum — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:00:18 +0000

Publishers do have lower literary standards when considering the publishing of memoirs vs novels, but that won’t necessarily continue. There was a time/event that sparked the near decade long love affair with memoirs: 9/11/01. With that, readers wanted memoirs and not novels, real life provided drama enough, and people wanted to understand their world better. They craved true stories: ones in which, Elliott points out, the author can’t intentionally lie, which is a difficult writing restriction if you need to shoehorn in a plot to a situation that didn’t naturally build climatically. Many great autobiographical writing and stories emerged as people turned to the form. A form new to a writer takes time to master. Stop-Time and Speak/Memory are the gold standard, and their excellence shows memoirs are not easy. Each work should be judged by its merits, as should individual works in any form.