Writing Memoirs, The Truth of Memories and Humor as Universal Solvent
I'm reading a lot over the last couple of weeks about the memoir as a form of writing. While I'm not planning on writing one myself, there is a reason behind this newfound interest: my project Rememoir. That's the thing I mentioned a few days ago as a project I'm excited about. I'm doing a lot of reading about them because the project is centered around helping people write and publish their memoirs.
I think it will be interesting technologically, but will be even more interesting from a "story" perspective. Creating a place for people to specifically share their personal story intrigues me. I really like the idea of helping people through that process. I think it's that whole combination that has me excited about the project.
One of the things I've been reading to have a better understanding of memoirs and what makes them tick is "Inventing the Truth", edited by William Zinsser. I've only just started it, but the intro essay is triggering lots of colliding thoughts.
2 topics are mentioned in that intro essay are things that have been recurring themes in my life. One of those is the nature of truth, especially how it relates to memory. Zinsser talks about the respective reactions he and his mother had to his writing about his childhood. He wrote it and remembered it as being a lonely childhood, which surprised and saddened his mother, who remembered his childhood as being positive and happy.
He wonders about which vision of his past is infused with more truth. Did his mother just not notice his loneliness or has his memory blown it out of proportion? In my own life, I've become aware of this exact thing. Memories that I remember painfully because of the activity involved are cherished by my dad because they were with me.
Even thinking about some of those now grabs at my heart. I tears me up that my memory and sharing it could actually disturb some of his favorite memories. At the same time, there are some of my most treasured memories that I've found are either completely unknown to my parents or that I've clearly remembered them in a much better light than they actually happened.
I'm intrigued by this whole mess and how the importance of those memories to us affects and determines just how true they are. One of the passages from "The Things They Carried" is that the some of the truest stories never happened and there's some stuff that happened that's not true.
A true story that never happened is a grenade landing on the ground and a guy jumps on it and dies saving his buddies. That's a true story. What really happened is that the guy jumped on the grenade and they all died anyway.
What that says about truth is complicated and hard to articulate, but resonant nonetheless.
The other topic that jumped out at me was Zinsser's description of humor as the "universal solvent". That is a great turn of phrase to describe how I feel about humor. It does act as a solvent, dissolving tensions, fear, unease, etc. That kind of humor has been a constant part of my life as a method of dealing with pain and frustration, showing up in some fairly dark humor. People close to me can attest that the bigger the tragedy or pain, the more likely I am to use humor to deal with it.
I'm not alone. That's pretty much the culture of my family and probably one of the reasons I like dark humor as a tension release in really tense moments in movies. It just works.
All of this has me in a reflective state. I'm not planning on writing a memoir, but thinking about helping other people do just that, you can't help but think about the important moments in your own life and how you'd characterize them. How many of my memories are true, how many actually happened, how many of the painful moments were punctuated with humor and how many remain stark and without the dissolving power of a good laugh.
