Remembering the Memoir

The passing of Frank McCourt, the 78-year-old author of the wildly successful Angela's Ashes, made me think about the memoir — specifically, what good memoirs I have read.

I will give McCourt his props. His memoir was grand, sweeping and one of the most heart-wrenching books I had read to date. It broke my heart to read about children experiencing such abject poverty, hunger, cold and disillusionment. I watched the movie with Carole the first weekend of its release, and neither of us was a terribly happy camper when we left the theater that night.

Carole and I have reviewed a number of memoirs in our blog, and some of them are worth mentioning (and recommending).

• If I am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus. A thoughtful and harrowing story of the author's younger sister — but even more so, the story of the author herself. The book jacket starts the story with the disappearance of the younger sister, but the author wisely begins the story at the right place: at her own beginning.

• The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. For those of us who did not experience it, parental neglect seems unfathomable. Try cranking it up a notch or 12 with Walls' book. I borrowed Carole's copy, tabs and all, and I was floored at the conditions under which these parents kept the children. The author begins her tale with an anecdote: seeing her mother living as a streetperson in Manhattan. Most authors wouldn't know where to go from there. Walls takes us to the right memories, weaving a story of sadness and disappointment that lingers.
  

• I Dreamed of Africa by Kuki Gallmann. Africa takes center stage in this memoir of a European woman who escapes to Africa after tragedies in her life. For her, Africa is home and we experience her life in a very visceral way. I cried more than once as I read her tales of hardship and sadness, loss and despair. It was one of the most beautifully written books I had ever read.

• How I Lost Five Pounds in Six Years by Tom Arnold. I laughed, I cried. It was a sweet, honest and rare story. The persona Arnold presents to his audience as an actor or a TV writer is much different than the love story he writes to his future children. I laughed at his self-deprecating humor. I appreciated the difference between a joke at his expense and being a joke — and never was he the latter. I loved this book so much I purchased a copy to use as a reference guide when I wrote my own memoir. (I will, however, leave out the meat processing plant job in mine.)

• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen. It's the story of a hiker who gets lost on his way down from trying to climb Mt. Everest and winds up in a tiny village whose inhabitants tend him back to health. In return, he promises to build them a school. Only he doesn't stop at one school for one village. I mentioned this book to my friend Wayne before his deployment to Afghanistan; he lamented the dove-ish approach of education, reminding me the true responsibility of the military. On his first R&R six months later, he commented that his humanitarian efforts made more difference by far than his military might. I think Greg would have agreed.

What are some memoirs you have enjoyed — or not?

The Glass Castle — Review by Carole

Jeanette Walls’ memoir evokes many emotions, not the least of which is anger. Anger at her parents for the way they treated and raised their children; anger at the extended family for their lack of intervention; and anger at a society that managed to always turn a blind eye to a situation that could not have been easy to ignore.

Oddly, though, Walls doesn’t write with anger. Her love for her parents resonates throughout the book. She credits them with giving her a love for literature and art, for being resilient, and for being able to take care of herself.

In The Glass Castle, Jeanette, her sisters, and her brother grow up in a truly extraordinary way. And I use the word extraordinary deliberately. The book starts off describing one of Walls’ earliest memories—boiling a hot dog at the age of 3 and having her dress catch on fire. You know right then and there that her childhood memories are going to be quite different from my own.

I daresay that they are probably quite different even from someone who had a stereotypical bad childhood, such as coming from a broken home or living with an abusive parent. In Walls’ story, the family is very much intact—they are simply quite insanely dysfunctional.

As I mentioned in my I Dreamed of Africa review, memoirs are revealing for what they tell us, but also for what they omit. For instance, although she writes this as a look-how-well-we-turned-out-despite-our-horrific-upbringing story, you get the sense that the younger sister has truly been lost in all of this. She didn't have the strength of the group to draw from as Jeanette, her brother, and her other sister did. Also, her older sister did not seem to give this book her blessing--even though her mother seemed to be okay with it!

This book made me realize how much we take for granted--to always be fed and warm as a child. (Thank you, Mom and Dad!) It reminded me of Angela's Ashes in that way. Their upbringing has to have had unbelievable lasting effects on each of those children. I noticed that Jeanette and her sister do not have children and the brother just has a daughter.

After reading the book and imagining all of the times that those children unnecessarily went hungry, a quote from the grown brother comes back to me. He says, “You know, it’s not that hard to put food on the table, if that’s what you set your mind to do.”

I was enthralled by this book from the very beginning. I was going to re-read this for one of my book clubs, and I found that I didn’t need to. The memories shared in the book haunt me still.

For more of Jeanette Walls' perspective on her childhood, check out this Gothamist interview.

I Dreamed of Africa — Review by Carole

I confess—I read I Dreamed of Africa thinking I wasn’t going to like it. It had a picture of Kim Basinger on the cover, and I don’t especially like her. It’s about Africa, and I usually find those stories so overwhelmingly depressing that I can’t stand to read them. So, this did not bode well for my reading experience. To counter all of that, though, I had Chris’ recommendation, who found the book so beautiful “I cannot bear to see [it] on celluloid.” Wow! That’s a pretty ringing endorsement. That plus the fact that Chris does not often steer me wrong outweighed my initial reservations. But I still went into it thinking that I wouldn’t like it.

With that said, I didn’t like the book, but not for the reasons listed above. I didn’t like Kuki Gallman’s memoir because I often became so angry at the narrator that I wanted to throw the book across the room (FYI — if you Google “throw the book across the room,” you’ll find that this is actually a fairly common description used by book bloggers to describe their purely visceral reaction to a book, often prompted by its ending.)

Kuki Gallman’s story begins in Italy, where, as a young woman, she dreams of Africa. I grant you that she does have a compelling writing style and her imagery throughout the memoir is beautiful. But like any memoir, she only shares the parts of her life that she chooses. I always find myself wondering about the stories not told. I had the same experience reading The Glass Castle, which I’ll be writing about later in the week.

Back to Kuki’s story: when her life’s journey does, in fact, take her to Africa, she knows she is home. But before she gets there, she suffers a horrific accident that leaves her nearly crippled. Amazingly enough, a wonderful surgeon eventually is able to literally set her straight again.

When she suffers this accident, she has a very young son. Her recovery from the accident requires an 8-month stay in the hospital. During this time, her son stays with Kuki’s mother. When she gets out of the hospital, she and her new husband move with her son to Africa. So, let me get this straight: She takes a little boy, whom she has been away from since he’s had much long-term memory and moves him somewhere he has never been. Sure, why not?

In this early instance, she struck me as a selfish person who acts first and thinks of consequences later. This is reinforced throughout the book, and annoyingly enough, she often points out that she had great foreboding at certain times, but she, except for one instance, doesn’t listen to that voice in her head. Of course, she is writing about these events after the fact, so perhaps ascribing certain feelings of dread adds to the drama.

I don’t mean to disparage the tragedies she suffered. I felt her sense of loss keenly throughout the book, and in fact, it is through her loss that she sets her life on the path she pursues to this day. What I also felt throughout the book is that she was quite spoiled, used to getting her own way, rich enough to pursue whatever path she felt like following, and self-absorbed. I told myself to keep in mind the time period in which the book is set. Kuki was essentially a hippie determined to find herself. In her efforts to find herself, however, it is amazing what and who she lost along the way. I was repeatedly struck by the great carelessness with which she lived her life.

She writes quite poignantly about those around her and the tragedies they’ve suffered and endured. She uses this as a context for the harsh life they live in Africa. But it struck me that they should then value life even higher, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. She writes about life-threatening situations that her children find themselves in and what all of those events meant, but all I could do is ask, “Where were you? Why didn’t you know these things were going on in your children’s lives?”

The noble path that she ultimately takes is to establish the Gallman African Conservancy/Gallman Memorial Foundation. She does this in memory of those she’s lost. Throughout the book, she writes that she feels that she has to earn the right to live where she does. So why didn’t she pursue this sooner? Where was her passion for this cause before? She had the same connections, same abilities, but it takes tragedy in her life before she actually stops and looks around and pays attention to more than herself.

I give her a great deal of credit for putting her life story out there. It is remarkable for many things, but I just couldn’t get over the fact that, if I were to meet her, I wouldn’t like her. Isn’t that awful? I’m probably not supposed to feel that way about someone who is devoting her life to such a worthwhile cause. I’d really like to hear how wrong I am on this one—someone set me straight.

The Kite Runner as a Film: What Do You Think?

The Kite Runner, one of the most amazing books I have read in a long time, was just released in the U.S. as a film.

Have you seen it yet? What did you think?

Do you plan to see it? Why or why not?

I don't plan to see it because I loved the book too much. I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out: it's never as good on the screen as it is in my head.

Some books translate well to film, and I'm glad to see them.

However, some I cannot bear to see on celluloid, including I Dreamed of Africa and A Passage to India. I am sure at least one of them was a lovely movie, especially in the hands of Merchant Ivory Productions. I also know Mitch Albom would advise me to let it go. And maybe someday I will. But I can't yet surrender the beauty of the scenes told by Khaled Hosseini to the imagination of another human being.

Carole said...

I don't plan to see it, but for different reasons. I saw the preview for The Kite Runner a few months ago, and it started with "From one of the most beloved novels of our time...", and I thought "beloved"? The Kite Runner could be described in many ways, but beloved is not a word I would choose. Then the brouhaha about the boys who appear in the film having to flee their country because their families feared for some retribution for the rape scene they participate in really made me angry. It also made me angry that the father of one of the boys said that he only let his son be in the movie because he thought that scene wouldn't be included. Huh? It's only pivotal to the whole story!

Note: plot spoilers in following paragraph.

Lastly, although I thought that the imagery was beautiful in the book, and the characters were compelling, I didn't actually enjoy The Kite Runner as much as others around me did. I actually found the plot a little contrived. When the main character seeks redemption by going to Afghanistan to rescue his friend's son, he not only finds the orphan in the war-torn country, but the biggest impediment that he faces is the very same nemesis he couldn't confront as a child. It didn't work for me, and I have to say that I really didn't like the ending of the book at all. The slight glimmer of hope we were given at the very end didn't counterbalance all of that despair.

So, the answer to your question, for me, is no, I don't plan to see it.