(MDG Media International, 2019)
'One does not write with one's ego, one's memory, or one's illnesses ...'
I.
The post-pandemic world has witnessed the mushrooming of a large and thriving memoir industry; many non-fiction bestsellers are now some form or other of personal narrative - often providing a handy life lesson or advice on how to overcome trauma, depression, addiction, etc. (there's always a market for relatable pain).
It seems that, having survived Covid, more and more people are keen to get their stories down on paper; transforming memory into memoir - as those working in this sector like to say [1] - and, if possible, turning memoir into money (as if commercial success magically confirms the value and interest of an individual's life).
At best, I suppose, we might see this as a democratisation of a literary genre that was previously the reserve of the professional author reflecting on their life and work and/or the famous celebrity prepared to tell all - the chance for nobodies in an age of self-publishing to leave a written record which, they hope, will become a cherished family keepsake (and not just binned along with the rest of their junk).
There remains, nevertheless, something about the memoir industry and the overcoding of lived experience that I find problematic ...
II.
If the ancient alchemists looked to transmute base metals into gold, then those offering their services as professional editors (or ghostwriters) of memoirs are looking to turn the sheer intensity of lived experience - and that includes memory as the active mechanism by which events are retained, reconstructed, and incorporated into our present identity - into a profitable business.
That seems a tad grubby to me; producing a professional-looking manuscript from the vital chaos of someone else's life by stripping away the idiosyncratic elements isn't quite the same as helping birth a dancing star.
Far worse, however, than the commodification of the past, is dressing this up as some kind of psycho-spiritual quest; convincing people via expensive workshops and digital courses that by channelling their authentic self or personal truth they can achieve some kind of higher state or wholeness.
III.
Why writing matters is because it is ultimately an impersonal art. The writer writes not to express themselves, but to lose themselves within the text and become imperceptible to others; we know when we encounter good writing when the voice that speaks no longer belongs to an author but to language.
Great thinkers, including the poet T. S. Eliot [2] and the philosopher Gilles Deleuze [3], have all come to the conclusion that the aesthetic erasure of the self is the name of the game, not finding one's own voice and speaking with sincerity or genuine emotion - and not turning one's own suffering into some kind of myth laden with universal meaning.
We may not like the fact, but our lives have no story arc. We are not on a journey and there's no beginning, middle, or end (and certainly no redemption). Life is a series of random, unresolved events; some good, some happy; some bad and some not so pleasant (most just boring).
Nor do we have archetypal significance as individuals. When memoir becomes mythical it may increase reader interest (and thus market value), but it also becomes a falsehood designed to make reality intelligible (by explaining natural phenomena and human experience) and bearable (by offering emotional comfort and a sense of wonder in the face of the unknowable).
As a rule, I would encourage most people to shut up most of the time; to not sacrifice their private lives on social media or by writing memoirs; to not turn turn themselves into a brand (or blog).
And when someone with a slick website and a hundred-and-one professional qualifications tells you that everyone has a story to tell, keep in mind that this is just a sales pitch and that the person offering their services is not your friend or mentor or spirit guide; they will collect their fee whether you sell a single copy of your memoir or not.
In sum: from memory to memoir isn't an invitation to self-discovery - it's a process designed to extract raw material (your life) and turn it into a unit of consumption.
Notes
[1] Whilst I'm primarily thinking here of the book by Mark David Gerson - From Memory to Memoir: Writing the Stories of Your Life (MDG Media International, 2019) - the phrase 'memory to memoir' serves as a mantra, guiding principle, and marketing tagline across the memoir industry.
Gerson is probably the leading figure in this field. Not only is he a prolific author, blogger, podcaster, public speaker, counselor, and tutor, but he also describes himself as a 'groundbreaking visual artist' and 'gifted photographer' (like many such people, he's not shy in boasting of his own skills, qualifications, achievements, and awards).
Whilst I don't wish to single Gerson out, he would, nevertheless, make a perfect case study for a critique of the memoir industry; particularly the spiritual-cum-holistic healing branch of such, as Gerson's writing does at times veer toward the mystical (he frames memoir writing as a sacred act of self-channelling).
Readers who are interested in knowing more about this extremely successful individual and his work, can visit Gerson's website by clicking here.
[2] See Eliot's essay 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920), in which he develops his theory of impersonal literature. The essay can be read on the Poetry Foundation website: click here.
[3] According to Deleuze, literature is not as an attempt to express the inexpressible, or impose a coherent and conventional linguistic form on lived experience. Above all, Deleuze wishes to stress that literature should not become a form of personal overcoding, which is why any form of writing that is reliant upon the recounting of childhood memories, foreign holidays, lost loves, or sexual fantasies, is not only frequently bad writing - but dead writing; for literature dies from an excess of emotion, imagination, and autobiography, just as it does from an overdose of reality.
See Deleuze's essay 'Literature and Life', in Essays Critical and Clinical, trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael E. Greco (Verso, 1998). And see the post 'A Deleuzean Approach to Literature' (30 Aug 2013): click here.
For a related post to this one on Blake Morrison's spilling the beans on the art of memoir writing, click here.
