Baring All- Interviewed on the Way to the Exit
What's Left to Lose?
Swan Song.
Years ago, when I was harnessed between the shafts of ‘marketing’ and ‘publicity,’ I would have jumped at an invitation to be interviewed about a work in progress. To tell the truth, ‘progress’ has been sporadic, hobbled by doubts, lassoed by suggestions, delayed by forays into alternative diversions that took me up narrow muddy tracks until I turned and returned whence I had come.
‘Memoir is NOT autobiography’. ‘Autobiography is only for the famous ( and usually ghost written)’ Memoir is about a period, a problem solved, a growth, a triumph, done and dusted. NOT a meander through time. But suppose the meander through time IS the triumph? What then? Suppose only the whole life IS the subject, and only the whole covers it? What if the recipe to enlightened understanding needs each and every ingredient, including the ‘serve with finely chopped chilli’ and ‘lightly toasted’ Macadamias?
Imagine an architect who has converted a gracious building on the bank of a river into a new power station being told ‘We’d like our tour limited to the lobby and conservatory… No, no turbines or water courses…we’ll skip the basements’. Or Marcel Proust being instructed ‘ By all means keep the madeleines but cut out the other aromas? Get rid of the musty curtains and the face powder.’ Or Tolkien. ‘Let’s just stick with the Hobbits?’ I am a great believer in ‘less is more'. The question is, less of what? Less story? Less evocation?
Why is memoir, the record of an individual life, subject to confinements? Is it because it is assumed one person’s life has no relevance to others? Only its problems do, so limit yourself to those?
Six or more years ago I wrote ‘A Fine Careless Rapture’, in which the wise thrush sang twice over, about a life divided and on repeat for important reasons. Following many ‘improvement’ suggestions ( which didn’t improve) I came to Substack to follow another suggestion- Serialize with Writers at Work. I did the offered and excellent lessons assiduously, and could see their theoretical value. I started from scratch. Again.
I asked the opinion (of the resultant drafts) of my most constant reader, my daughter.
‘It’s not as good as the original’ she said, ‘It’s clunky. You never write clunky. What possessed you!’. I know how ‘clunky’ happened. In the original, characters sidled in quietly, and through their actions became solid, and filled out, but in serialisation, to hold the attention over episodes, their presence had to be summarised. Were they even necessary? Yes they were. So clunky introductions to who and how old and why. Bald, rather than growing hair.
Stalled. Start again.
Which is why this interview was important. Out of the blue I was invited to be interviewed on a platform that explores ‘unusual or out of the ordinary experiences’. Lucinda Lidstone has a blog and interviews people who have such experiences to recount. With some trepidation I agreed to an interview: Trepidation was not due to the revealing intimacy of what was likely to come up, but whether my facility with words still existed, the only polished skill I once had. Costa geriatrica has been battered in the last few years, with towering waves and a constant wash of surf, that may have smoothed the sharp edges of discernment. No matter. I would somehow have to settle for approximations, and hope that stamina would hold up.
I think it did, more or less. You can judge for yourselves. What Lucinda’s kind and thoughtful questions elicited was a resurrection of belief that the memoir, now titled ‘Far Fetched’ (in every sense) might yet find readers, who will disregard the ‘thou shalt not meander’ and get to meet my fellow travelers on my Camino. The equivalent of Santiago, with its swinging censor, happens only through the travelling hopefully, not the arrival. Meanwhile, they are all worth meeting!
Here is a link to the interview. https://onevsp.com/watch/6barcWDmTFn5o2F