Monday, January 05, 2015

Story of Self

In a recent article about the writing of memoir the word omphaloskepsis appeared. It seems that some critics of the genre throw the term about when they want to criticize writers who spend too much time "navel gazing"—or describing in minute detail all their trials and tribulations.

Is the writer meditating on life or obsessed with one's own persona?

Memoirs draw people. The good memoir allows the reader a glimpse of a particular time, place, situation, and yet it also expands to allow the reader to see the general in the particular.

In the last two months I know two people who wrote memoirs. Why? What do they want to say about their landscape? I think it must be more than an "and then" story.



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