L.A. Times reviews Patricia Hampl's The Florist Daughter. I'm slightly amused by this:
It always seems ridiculous when a writer offers up a memoir at, say, age 25 or 30. But it's equally ridiculous to think that we shed just as much wisdom on our past at 30 as we might at 50 or 80. Things sink in differently at different times, a fact that makes memoir writing more like blogging than storytelling. Stories require narratives. Memories elude narratives. Too much narrative and you're in fiction territory. Without a map.
If Hampl is the memoir queen, Annie Ernaux and the late Anaïs Nin are the founding mothers of the blog. Since both have written mostly about their lovers, updates are constantly necessary.
I like it that bloggers can claim Anaïs Nin as our founding mother. I'm also slightly embarrassed that I actually enjoyed read Nin's Delta of Venus and Little Birds. Henry and June was overblown -- reminds me a little of D.H. Lawrence -- but hynoptic in some places
5 comments:
Yes, Anais Nin as founding mother o'blogs is quite amusing. Maybe a bumper sticker in the making.
I have Henry and June languishing on my stacks. One day, one day.
Funny. I've never read any of her work but I did read a biography about her once - hence I was completely turned off and didn't want to read her writing. Am I a snob? hehe
Andi I don't have a car, but maybe a button -- for the blog!
Heather I'm ambivalent about Anais Nin too. She's interesting, but there's always something too overblown about her style. But at least she wrote fun erotica. ;p
That kind of thinking just proves the old adage that everything old is new again and that there is nothing new under the sun. Essentially we are doing the same thing as they were way back when only we are taking advantage of the ease of modern technology to do so. Despite technology we are more linked to our past and those who have gone before than we sometimes think we are.
Carl I agree -- technology has merely changed the medium of how we go about doing the same things.
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