In “The Past Is Never Over,” Larson calls the reliability of memory into question. He discusses the “layered simultaneity” (36) of writing about the self: the past is constructed in the present because writers’ processes of remembering, re-remembering, editing, and intervening on their pasts and memories occurs in the present. These processes can occur intentionally or unintentionally, but regardless, they comprise “the prime relational dynamic between the memoir and the memoirist: the remembered self and the remembering self” (Larson 36). In one example, Larson claims that “it is the memoirist’s current examination of his younger self that propels the book beyond a chronicle of adolescence to a memoir of self-disclosure” (37)--here, it seems that direct action by the remembering self is responsible for creating the crucial self-reflection we discussed in our last class meeting.
Larson also reminds us that the “therapy of memoir….reopens old wounds” (40)--in the act of writing about the self, the writer’s normal existence in linear time is disrupted; the past is transported to the “changeable present” (41) and vice versa. The writer might feel as though they’re experiencing the past all over again, as if the remembering and remembered self has merged. In Larson’s example about “detaching now from then” (42), the writer projects an “other self” (43), using both first and second person to describe her two separate subjectivities. While this is certainly a strategy for separating now from then (and an emotional one--it seems that the writer talked about her other self in the second person to insulate herself from difficult memories), it also seems to me that it’s a blending of the two; the reader becomes aware that an “I” and “she” exist from the same writer’s perspective, and it’s also a very direct intervention into the narrative of remembered self.
I have a lot of big questions about all of this, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask everyone to answer all of them, so perhaps we can each choose the questions from the following list that feel the most troubling, significant, and/or urgent to sort through:
- Is intervention by the remembering self into the past inevitable?
- What sort ethical responsibilities do you feel in representing the past? How might this change if present-subject intervention is inevitable?
- If we agree with Larson that different times merge in memoir writing, and that memory is constantly shifting, what does this mean for things we tend to value, like the notion of an authentic self, honesty, and truth?
- To repeat Larson’s questions on page 33: “But what is the truth? Where does it exist?”
- How often do you question your own memories? How might this doubt come into play when you write about yourself, if at all?
- In your own writing, how does time seem to function? Where is the present and where is the past? Why?
- How does your remembering self interact with your remembered self in your writing? Do you intentionally split yourself into multiple selves, or do these selves seem to merge?
- How do emotion and trauma play a role in the politics of remembering, writing about the self, and representing the past?
And some questions about “The Difference Maker”--ideally, I think everyone should tackle at least one of these questions:
- In Daum’s essay, how do you read the relationship between past and present? How does time seem to be working for her as a writer? What about memory?
- What are the selves you see operating in Daum’s essay? Do you think the dynamics of remembering/remembered in her piece are there intentionally? How do you see her relationship with herself change throughout the piece?
- Daum isn’t, of course, only representing herself--her husband and several kids who she tried to mentor appear in the essay. How might she have navigated representing them, and how does this compare to how she represents herself?I'm excited to read your thoughts!