I was made to think this evening (after an interesting radio program) about memoirs and autobiographies. Memoirs are an entirely different literary genre from auto/biographies. Biography focuses on a chronological series of events in a life, whereas a memoir speaks more to the development of one's personality, character, worldview, or life as seen through that person's eyes.
If your memoir is like mine, it is vastly different from your biography. There are a lot of things that have happened in my life that would necessarily need to be included in my biography. Those events would not, however, need to end up in my memoir. If I'm writing a memoir, I can focus on what was most important to me, and what I feel helped to shape me the most. I can interpret events, and I can take great liberty in doing so. With biography, you only get the facts. You don't necessarily get to see the personal effect.
I have made much more out of my life than just what has happened to me. I'd definitely rather write a memoir.
Pax et bonum
I was actually thinking of this yesterday, as I was reading C.S. Lewis's own memoir, "Surprised By Joy". He emphasized at the beginning that this spiritual memoir of his would pass over many important things in his life that nevertheless did not shape the development of his imagination and spiritual awakening. At the same time, he told in detail of small moments in his childhood that years later loomed much, much larger in his memory.
ReplyDeleteIt really is true that some of the most formative moments and periods in our lives passed little noticed and seemingly unimportant. The quiet stirrings of grace below our radars. I think Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" brilliantly and movingly depicts this miraculous and divine phenomenon.
Brideshead Revisited is one of my favorite novels.
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