life as grist (for the writer's mill)
Sep. 23rd, 2009 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribalI'm not really into memoir, but the debate about whether parents should be allowed to write memoirs that concern their children's "private lives" is an interesting one, mostly for the level of vitriol and extremism it engenders. It's acting like it's A Big Deal because Julie Myerson's book about her drug addicted teenage son (Lost Child) was released in the US (she apparently got ravaged for it in her native UK some time back).
First, the writers/Myerson-sympathizers:
For me, everything is grist, everything is worthy of sacrifice if it serves the story (memoir and nonfiction are constructions, after all, their truths organized and manipulated as calculatedly as any fiction). I try to take care that legal concerns are attended to: names changed, etc., so that the actual persons referenced are not easily identifiable, but that’s as far as I go. Friends, relatives, lovers, are all fair game. [And later...] The greater good a work of art imbues to the world at large is worth any number of strained relations and small hurts. If Mozart or Dylan or Nabokov threw everyone they ever loved under the bus to give us their art — I say it was worth it… and so would most artists.
The immodesties of family life are such a basic literary subject that one should hardly be shocked when they appear in a memoir, where they’re most likely to be found... This kind of “theft” is an unavoidable aspect of the writer’s trade. To tell a writer she has to lay off her children, for instance, seems unduly restrictive.
Writers are always told to “write what you know.” Your life intersects with the lives of others. It is inevitable that you will draw on your lived experience. Even if you write fiction, people will recognise (or imagine they recognise) themselves.
Myerson makes mistakes. Her son makes mistakes. We all make mistakes. Writers write about it because they work in the craft of writing. There are other far more devastating occupations. It is pathetic to see folks trying to reduce craft, no matter how it is degraded by commercialism and marketing, to some sanctimonious rules for how to treat permanent [parent?] children, principally because the writer is also a mother.
It is inevitable that writers will write about their own experience–that’s a large part of why they write, to organize their thoughts and feelings about what they’ve done and what’s happened to them. It’s also inevitable that that experience will include others. The others that it includes will have differing feelings about those writings, and the author has to accept that.
Like it or not, all life is grist for the mill–each writer makes the “what/who to include” decision for him/herself each time, and risks the consequences to self and others. However, if writers spent their years seeking permission, or waiting for others to die, there would be precious few books out there that rise above the level of “101 Uses for a Dead Cat.”
Now, everybody else:
For God’s sake, you wouldn’t want your private life, thoughts, moments, and actions written about (and please, spare me the “it’s part of the game if you’re a writer.” Yes, it does come with the territory but that doesn’t mean you would like it!) Those writing about others private moments without explicity permission are no better than my high school students who endlessly gossip. The difference being those students are still kids and are learning right and wrong. These writers (ostensibly adults) obviously failed that part of growing up.
“Material.” “Everything’s ‘material.’” What an incredibly pathological way to look at your family.
That said, I'm with the people that say writing is about making sense of the world, and pretty much everyone and everything you interact with helps form your experience and knowledge and perception of the world. That's true for everybody. What's also true for everybody is that they imprint the sense they've made of the world onto the world - that's in your conversations and the work you choose to do and the politicians you vote for (or don't vote for) and the causes you give to and the way you raise your kids. Writers just do it in a very distributable, reproducible, "legible" way - for better or worse.
That said #2, I'd fictionalize the whole thing to avoid charges of libel, etc., and to have more artistic license.
First, the writers/Myerson-sympathizers:
For me, everything is grist, everything is worthy of sacrifice if it serves the story (memoir and nonfiction are constructions, after all, their truths organized and manipulated as calculatedly as any fiction). I try to take care that legal concerns are attended to: names changed, etc., so that the actual persons referenced are not easily identifiable, but that’s as far as I go. Friends, relatives, lovers, are all fair game. [And later...] The greater good a work of art imbues to the world at large is worth any number of strained relations and small hurts. If Mozart or Dylan or Nabokov threw everyone they ever loved under the bus to give us their art — I say it was worth it… and so would most artists.
The immodesties of family life are such a basic literary subject that one should hardly be shocked when they appear in a memoir, where they’re most likely to be found... This kind of “theft” is an unavoidable aspect of the writer’s trade. To tell a writer she has to lay off her children, for instance, seems unduly restrictive.
Writers are always told to “write what you know.” Your life intersects with the lives of others. It is inevitable that you will draw on your lived experience. Even if you write fiction, people will recognise (or imagine they recognise) themselves.
Myerson makes mistakes. Her son makes mistakes. We all make mistakes. Writers write about it because they work in the craft of writing. There are other far more devastating occupations. It is pathetic to see folks trying to reduce craft, no matter how it is degraded by commercialism and marketing, to some sanctimonious rules for how to treat permanent [parent?] children, principally because the writer is also a mother.
It is inevitable that writers will write about their own experience–that’s a large part of why they write, to organize their thoughts and feelings about what they’ve done and what’s happened to them. It’s also inevitable that that experience will include others. The others that it includes will have differing feelings about those writings, and the author has to accept that.
Like it or not, all life is grist for the mill–each writer makes the “what/who to include” decision for him/herself each time, and risks the consequences to self and others. However, if writers spent their years seeking permission, or waiting for others to die, there would be precious few books out there that rise above the level of “101 Uses for a Dead Cat.”
Now, everybody else:
For God’s sake, you wouldn’t want your private life, thoughts, moments, and actions written about (and please, spare me the “it’s part of the game if you’re a writer.” Yes, it does come with the territory but that doesn’t mean you would like it!) Those writing about others private moments without explicity permission are no better than my high school students who endlessly gossip. The difference being those students are still kids and are learning right and wrong. These writers (ostensibly adults) obviously failed that part of growing up.
“Material.” “Everything’s ‘material.’” What an incredibly pathological way to look at your family.
What a bunch of excuse-makers. Why don’t you just go the whole way, put on fangs, and suck the kid’s blood?... It’s a dishonest writer who doesn’t know that using other people’s stories is theft and often a form of violence. If you’re so utterly self-centered that you can’t keep your hands off your own kid, don’t have kids.
His attitude - “all is grist for Art!” - is not exactly calculated to produce family harmony; perhaps someday that trade-off may seem less attractive than it does to him now.
If statements like that are Mr. Mathews’ idea of moral reasoning, I wonder what kind of books he writes. Nothing worth throwing anybody under a bus for. Nothing worth his morning cup of coffee, I suspect. Mr. Mathews is adoping a pose, the pose of the Romantic artist who will sacrifice everything (except himself) for his art. Make no mistake: this is not a formula for producing good art. It’s just a pose.
I don’t think a writer should use other people in order to earn one’s own living, but when one writes about one’s own family in order to make money, a writer is making a decision for everyone in the family that everyone has to live with but only the writer makes money from. Isn’t that an act of arrogance for which the writer must expect ringing condemnation?
What a load of noble crap from a bunch of self-righteous authors. Your child is not capable of giving informed consent to having his private life aired for your benefit. Sure, you draw on what you know, but any writer who would shamelessly exploit his or her child’s private life for personal gain deserves a special circle in Hell. It is sickening that anyone would rise to the defense of this reprehensible author.
If statements like that are Mr. Mathews’ idea of moral reasoning, I wonder what kind of books he writes. Nothing worth throwing anybody under a bus for. Nothing worth his morning cup of coffee, I suspect. Mr. Mathews is adoping a pose, the pose of the Romantic artist who will sacrifice everything (except himself) for his art. Make no mistake: this is not a formula for producing good art. It’s just a pose.
I don’t think a writer should use other people in order to earn one’s own living, but when one writes about one’s own family in order to make money, a writer is making a decision for everyone in the family that everyone has to live with but only the writer makes money from. Isn’t that an act of arrogance for which the writer must expect ringing condemnation?
What a load of noble crap from a bunch of self-righteous authors. Your child is not capable of giving informed consent to having his private life aired for your benefit. Sure, you draw on what you know, but any writer who would shamelessly exploit his or her child’s private life for personal gain deserves a special circle in Hell. It is sickening that anyone would rise to the defense of this reprehensible author.
On the other hand, since when do “artistes” give a rusty you-know-what about other people? If they did, they wouldn’t write it.
The pursuit of truth? OK, so that’s how you justify it. Well the rest of us live in the real world in which people have feelings. Yes, you have the choice to disregard those feelings and pursue whatever you call truth. But that’s abotu the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard. Why do you need to pursue this flight of fancy (pursuing truth)? And what makes you think the subject of your writing has anything to do with a truth that’s significant to society.
This is why I decided long ago to never get involved with a writer or tell a writer anything personal.
:( You're... breaking my heart?
I'm not a fan of the whole grist-mill analogy. That reminds me too much of the idea that people are carbon for the capitalistic engine and such, and art shouldn't literally or metaphysically eat people. Or victimize them. I think art should be humanistic. The whole "people are wood to add to my fire!" mindset is just creepy and selfish and probably inspired a lot of the angry anti-writer comments.
I'm not a fan of the whole grist-mill analogy. That reminds me too much of the idea that people are carbon for the capitalistic engine and such, and art shouldn't literally or metaphysically eat people. Or victimize them. I think art should be humanistic. The whole "people are wood to add to my fire!" mindset is just creepy and selfish and probably inspired a lot of the angry anti-writer comments.
That said, I'm with the people that say writing is about making sense of the world, and pretty much everyone and everything you interact with helps form your experience and knowledge and perception of the world. That's true for everybody. What's also true for everybody is that they imprint the sense they've made of the world onto the world - that's in your conversations and the work you choose to do and the politicians you vote for (or don't vote for) and the causes you give to and the way you raise your kids. Writers just do it in a very distributable, reproducible, "legible" way - for better or worse.
That said #2, I'd fictionalize the whole thing to avoid charges of libel, etc., and to have more artistic license.
