Is there a song? Sick of myself? The Matron thinks so, but she's so tired and self-involved she cannot remember it. Lord of the Flies, Day 3, was yesterday.
But even as she toiled and hauled, the Matron was bothered yesterday--bothered by a book.
She just finished If I am Murdered or Dead by Janine Latus. The Matron picked up this book in the offhand, spur of the moment, need-a-beach-read sort of way, the way one grabs a People magazine. The book had a New York Times Bestseller banner on the cover and a simple Google search revealed the book once reached the rank of #27. How bad could it be?
Number 27! Oh My God! She is stomping her exhausted foot, it is that bad!!!
The pedestrian prose isn't the main problem (although let's just say the modest Matronly way with words outshines).
No, what bothers the Matron is that this book simply struts out abuse and self-abasement, prances these sad character traits about and shines them up for everybody to see -- sort of like reality TV. Just like Jerry Springer-- hey! Watch blind Egyptian lesbian with one limb amputated fight over the ex-girlfriend. Just like that.
Latus describes how her father defined his daughters purely in sexualized terms: somebody else's fresh meat for the future. And she saw herself that way, turning over her body like a calling card and entering a marriage in which her husband coerced her into having breast enhancement surgery and then demanded (and got) sex, post-op, in the hospital room. Yup. Emergency appendectomy? Probably a good time for loving, about 10 minutes off the table (because he was that worried about you and you're lucky he loves you so much, even if having sex is pretty much the full-time job you don't like that much).
There's more. Looooooooooooooots more.
And that's what bothers the Matron about contemporary memoir. Mostly, the disease or distress is reproduced in an entirely voyeuristic way and then boom -- the writer is sober or gets divorced or stops shooting up. The reader gets endless debasement and self-abuse. Guess what? We all know that story and, well, it's sort of boring after a few rounds.
But a detailed narrative of reinvention? Self-construction? How someone consciously, carefully recreates their own psyche and self into something stronger? Sorry! Not a lot out there. Alice Koller's classic, An Unknown Woman, might just be the best of the slim bunch. Striking analysis of self and reconstruction which is probably about 20 years old now.
Our cultural disinterest in the mechanics -- just how does somebody change?--strikes the Matron as odd, given our national narrative of reinvention and success. On this Fourth of July, she considers that one of the grand themes of America has been an unflagging optimism regarding personal success. Anything is possible! You can pull yourself out of the grimmest plight, reinvent yourself, start over -- anything goes in America! There's nothing we like more than a rags to riches story.
But. How do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you don't have any boots? She'd like to know that trick? How do you go from abuse to divorce in one chapter? From the bottle to AA expert? Hmmm? Details, people!
Without those details of hard word and self-recovery, these transformation seem sort of magical, easy or just the natural progression.
There's another danger to leaving out the real story, the work, a danger which hints at a darker side to the glorious narrative of self-reinvention and success. Those ideals are so deeply wrapped in our cultural psyche that (she thinks, you can disagree) that a sense of entitlement is the flip side, the barnacle clinging to the boat. If you live in a land where anyone can be President and opportunities are endless, don't you want a piece of that pie? If you don't get it, how do you feel? Cheated? Shorted? Or not as good as you should be, really. So entitlement, anger and despair might be the underbelly of the American dream. She's seen those qualities in action and has participated in them, as well.
All this, from one little memoir! That Matron. She really should be an English professor.
Happy fourth of July, readers.
9 comments:
Nothing worse than wasting your time and sullying your mind with a bad book...
Have you read Devil in the Details (Jennifer Traig)? I found it amusing and interesting. I'm curious what you would think of it.
It amazes me some of the garbage that gets published these days.
I think you should be paid for that review. You had so many good points.
Our time is so valuable, it is beyond frustrating when we take time to read a book and it is that bad.
I love contemporary memoir, but haven't heard of that book. I may look for it at the library just to look through it. I am a stickler for a well-written book.
I was so amused by the fuss over A Million Little Pieces. I could tell by page 2 that it wasn't all true--did the editors (or Oprah) have any discernment whatsoever?
No kidding. In your new job will your writing lessons reach more people?
Public service offering:
I'd really appreciate your keeping an ongoing list of books you recommend for your blog readers. I'm with surburban - hate to waste my time on a bad book!
That sort of thing is one of my biggest pet peeves IRL. There's no point in a kid entering an essay contest for example, if his dad isn't fighting in Iraq. There's no selling a book if the writer or main character has not undergone some sort of abuse or major trauma. Why can't we just celebrate people's achievements? Why are we so focused on tragedy? And that's how you end up with people that just pull out an "abuse" card whenever they think they need to get away with something.
Y'know, we had this very discussion this last week in Colorado. I despise what passes for good reading, most of the MFA grads just write for shock value since that's what gets published and that just begets more of the same crap. Hence my adoration for straight fiction. I don't CARE about people's life stories and creative nonfiction is simply a heap way to label something "not true" but "true" at the same time. WTF??? Great musings, Matron, and a huge AMEN from this corner of the choir.
I request a monthly book review from the Matron!
It's part of the American psyche...immediate gratification, most likely delivered by a John Wayne type character, or Rocky Balboa. Hollywood and New York are in bed together and today's literary "hits" have to first be seen as potential"made into a movie" before publishers take a chance and believe readers don't always want popcorn with our pages.
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