Tag Archives: memoir

November 24, 2018 · 10:55 pm

Raised to the Pitch of Incandescence: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

“Sartre corresponded exactly to the dream-companion I had longed for since I was fifteen; he was the double in whom I found all my burning aspiration raised to the pitch of incandescence,” writes a young Simone de Beauvoir who is about to begin her most famous love affair.   While reading Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, the first in a trilogy of very detailed books about her life, I kept thinking that incandescent, intense, and passionate are the perfect words to describe Beauvoir even from a very young age.

At the age of five or six Beauvoir has vivid memories and intense feelings of love and devotion towards the people who are closest to her: her parents, her younger sister and her nanny, Louise.  She believes they are all perfect and can do no wrong and adores her family with an unwavering and almost romantic fervor.   She writes about her earliest years, “I though it was a remarkable coincidence that heaven should have given me just these parents, this sister, this life.  Without any doubt, I had every reason to be pleased with what fate had brought me.”  When she goes to school she throws herself wholeheartedly into her studies and is very proud when she receives praises and rewards for her academic achievements.  And the young Simone’s religious devotion is just as passionate as her love for her family and her interest in learning:

I was very pious; I made my confession twice a month to Abbe Martin, received Holy Communion three times a week and every morning read a chapter of The Imitation of Christ; between classes, I would slip into the school chapel and, with my head in my hands, I would offer up lengthy prayers; often in the course of the day I would lift up my soul to my Maker.  I was no longer very interested in the Infant Jesus, but I adored Christ to distraction.

As she grows older, she gradually loses her faith and questions the double standards for men and women placed on her not only by the rules of religion but also by the demands of the bourgeois society that she has grown up in. She is discouraged from asking any questions about sex and doesn’t realize until an absurdly late age—at least by today’s standards—how conception takes place and she knows full-well that this is ridiculous.  She detests the idea that it is acceptable for young men to sow their wild oats and have a variety of sexual escapades before marriage, but if  a woman does the same thing then she, and her family, are ruined.

Not surprisingly, Beauvoir goes from one extreme to the next—she embraces atheism, openly rebels against her parents, and chooses education and a career instead of marriage and children.  As she is moving towards these things her desire for more and more freedom causes her a great deal of angst and her moods are rather extreme.  She goes, within the space of a page or two, from being in love with life to being in the absolute pits of despair.  She oftentimes quotes the diary she keeps during these years which are filled with grand, melodramatic statements: “I want life, the whole of life.  I feel an avid curiosity; I desperately want to burn myself away, more brightly than any other person, and no matter with what kind of flame.”

In a lot of ways the memoir is  a tragedy about two of the closest people to her throughout her childhood and her teenage years: her older cousin Jacques and her best friend Zaza.  Beauvoir is intermittently in love with her cousin whom she views as a hero, especially in her younger years.  For a time she even thinks that should could marry Jacques, but her feelings about him, like many other things in her life, run to the extremes of love and rejection.  And Zaza she meets when they are young pupils at the same school.  It is touching to see that as the girls get older they become closer friends and confidants.  But neither Zaza nor Jacques are able to break free from yoke and expectations placed on the by bourgeois life.  While Beauvoir is studying at the Sorbonne, living on her own, and meeting Sartre, her cousin and her best friend are swallowed up by their miserable lives.

This volume of the memoir ends just as Beauvoir is about to take up a love affair with Sartre.  The amount of details, the extremes of emotion, the incandescence are, at times, a bit overwhelming—not that I didn’t like her writing, and, in fact, I oftentimes identified with her.    But I think I will take a break because I am in need of something a little more serene at the moment before I resume her story.

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November 21, 2018 · 8:46 pm

He Held Radical Light: A Memoir by Christian Wiman

“Awe without an end ends in dread, for however much the mind is lit by the fires of that eternal elsewhere, we inevitably fall back into this singular being that, though it matters so much to us, matters not at all in the furnace of infinity.” —Christian Wiman

Wiman’s memoir is an interesting addition to my list of “auto” books—autobiography, auto-fiction, letters–that I have read this year.  He Held Radical Light, which title is taken from an A.R. Ammons poem,  covers only a few years in Wiman’s life, when he was editor of Poetry magazine, fell in love with and married his wife, and was diagnosed with cancer.  He uses personal anecdotes about the poets he meets, their poetry and his own reflections on and struggles with the meaning of art and faith to describe these eventful years in his life.

It is actually towards the end of this short book, when he is debating whether or not he should leave his position as editor at Poetry and take up an offer from the Yale School of Divinity, when he articulates the overarching themes or questions he is exploring.   He writes, or asks: “What does an authentic life in poetry look like?”  and “What does an authentic faith look like?”  He looks to the many famous poets he has met for the answer to his first question.   The book opens with Wiman’s vivid memory of meeting the poet A.R. Ammons while an undergrad at Washington and Lee University in Virginia:

I was a virgin when I heard Ammons read.  A virgin of poetry readings, I mean, though the experience was probably more memorable and momentous than the other one.  It occurred to me that Ammons might have been equally innocent, and equally confused, as ten minutes into his reading he suddenly stopped and said, “You can’t possibly be enjoying this,” then left the podium and sat back down in the front row.

The poet was coerced into going on for a bit more until he put a definitve end to the reading.  Wiman finishes his Ammon story, “Enough,” he muttered finally, and thudded his colossal body down beside his wife like the death of faith itself.”  The poet Donald Hall, who becomes a personal friend to Wiman, doesn’t have much better advice about what it means to live an authentic life in poetry.  Over lunch one day Hall says to him, “I was thirty-eight when I realized not a word I wrote was going to last.”  And Mary Oliver, whom he meets at a reading while editor at Poetry, puts a copy of Spenser’s Faerie Queene into her bag and says to Wiman, “I’m not young.  I want to spend what time I have left with masterpieces.”

So why do poets continue to write, how do they deal with the fact that, as Wiman realizes, “Nothing survives.”  He includes in this memoir a number of powerful poems whose central theme is death to remind us that, even if they are only ephemeral, they give us some shared language and meaning to contemplate:

Jack Gilbert,  “They Will Put My Body into the Ground”

They will put my body into the ground
Chemistry will have its way for a time,
and then large beetles will come.
After that, the small beetles. Then
the disassembling. After that, the Puccini
will dwindle the way light goes
from the sea. Even Pittsburgh will
vanish, leaving a greed tough as winter.

From the last lines of Mary Oliver’s “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

maybe death isn’t darkness, after all
but so much light wrapping itself around us—
as soft as feathers—
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light—scalding, aortal light—
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.

And from Philip Larkin’s “Aubade”

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realization of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Finally, Wiman, as a poet and as a man who was quite possibly facing his own death, gives us hints of what he thinks it means to have an authentic faith.  As someone who spent many of my formative years under the yoke of Catholicism, it was refreshing for me to read about a man whose faith isn’t necessarily intertwined with any particular form of organized religion.  Wiman writes, “I have never felt much confort in the notion of heaven or eternity, mostly because I can’t conceive of these things.  But even more than that, Christianity entails—or at least it ought to—a scouring of the self, the individual ego, and as I said above, most of our notions of eternity and/or heaven amount to nothing more than a dream of the self’s survival.”  He ends his book with a comment about faith and Steven Wallace’s death: “There is much argument over whether or not Steven’s converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.  I yawn just pondering it.  Not because it doesn’t matter, but because the claim of God is too individual, intimate, and inarticulate to admit of this kind of schoolbook speculation.”  Through his anecdotes, his poetry and his personal reflections  in He Held Radical Light Wiman certainly gives us something to consider as far as poetry and/as faith.

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June 18, 2015 · 11:16 am

Review and Author Interview: Love in the Elephant Tent by Kathleen Cremonesi

I received an advanced review copy of this title from the publisher, ECW Press.

About The Book:
Elephant TentKathleen’s life has always been an itinerant one and from the time she was seventeen she took off from her small hometown and Oregon and went on the road.  She tries out different things that take her through various parts of the U.S. and Europe.  She finally lands in Spain where she starts to work for a circus and meets the Elephant trainer who completely changes her life.

What is interesting about Kathleen’s story is that there are a lot of bumps on the way to finding her true happiness.  She does immediately have feelings for Stefano but her parent’s rocky marriage has a negative effect on how Kathleen views commitment.  It is interesting to follow Kathleen on her emotional journey.

I also liked the fact that Kathleen talks about animal cruelty and the elephants she encounters.  Stefano tells her that elephants are nomadic animals and should be roaming free.  She does not gloss over or hide the fact that their captivity in a circus is not the best environment for them.

If you love memoirs and travel writing then LOVE IN THE ELEPHANT TENT is a great book to put on your reading list for the summer.

Author Q&A:
1. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and how you became an author?
I have always aimed to create my own space in this world, and I have been self-employed for most of my adult life, usually in ways that incorporated art and creativity. In part, my inspiration to carve my own pathway through life comes from rebelling against the pain I saw my mother experience when her marriage dissolved, so I steered my life in the opposite direction by running away from any situation that even hinted of domesticity. Instead, I sought out adventure and refused to bend to others’ expectations and desires – which made life exciting but also lonely. It wasn’t until I met Stefano in Spain that I found someone I could imagine sharing a life with – but imagining something and living it are quite different, of course. It took a lot of growing up on my part, and Stefano’s, for us create a life together.

Once we did make that leap and moved from Italy to America, many people were curious about how we met, which of course brings up circus stories. Most people were anxious to hear more. I heard, “You should write a book,” so many times, that I finally decided to do just that. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – I ran away with the Grateful Dead and then the circus instead of pursuing a college education, so I had to learn how to write before I could complete a book-length manuscript. Without any formal training, that took a lot of trial and error, and Love in the Elephant Tent is the product of all those years of work.

2. What is the best book you have read in the past year that you would recommend to my readers?
Oh, boy, does it have to be just one? Off the top of my head, three come to mind: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which I’ve read before but found myself reading again this year. Great book. Love the deep, sometimes flawed, but always real relationship those women shared and how they pass its essence on to the next generation. I also read Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer for the first time. Wow. It’s written in such a straightforward manner but conveys such depth and adventure and willingness – no, need – to put your life on the line to obtain freedom and knowledge and feel fully alive. And last, but certainly not least, is Chiseled, a memoir by Danuta Pfeiffer. Full disclosure: she’s a member of my writing group and I’ve been reading successive versions of her book for about 17 years. She finally published it earlier this year, and reading a finished copy was a moving experience. This woman basically went to hell and back multiple times. In her youth, she wanted to be a nun, but events prevented that. Over the years, she was “saved” by God, rejected by his followers. Grew from being a hard-scrabble youth in rural Minnesota to becoming “the most prominent woman in Christianity” and co-hosting The 700 Club with Pat Robertson – only to walk away from it all, bike 1000 miles from Canada to Mexico with little experience, and finally reconnect with her liberal roots, as well as find love, peace and fulfillment in an Oregon vineyard. Great read, well told, highly recommended.

3. Since your book is an autobiography were you nervous about exposing details about your life for the public?
Absolutely. The thought still wakes me up in the middle of the night sometimes. Close friends who know my story with Stefano well have told me they’ll never look at us the same again. Those types of declarations freak me out as much as they make me smile with relief. As scary as such revelations are, it’s also a shame that we must fear exposing our vulnerabilities and sharing with the world who we truly were and are. Ninety-nine percent of what happened in the book took place over 25 years ago. I’ve grown since then, of course, become stronger and more confident. I look back on those years and judge my own actions, don’t agree with all of them, and sometimes would like to reach back in time and talk some sense into myself, so I won’t be surprised if others express the same desire. However, it is only through those long ago feelings and experiences that I have become the person I am today. A lot has happened between when Stefano and I left Italy and today. Those years we shared in the circus had a strong effect on who we’d become and how we’d deal with adversity and the challenges life threw at us individually and as a couple. Can’t say we would have made it this far without them. Back to your question: Nervous? Sure. Afraid of what might come of the exposure: I’ll meet those challenges as they come. Willing to share in case it could help another young woman find her place in this world or a couple keep their love alive? Definitely!

4. What writing projects are you working on next? Will you stick with non-fiction or will you delve into fiction this time?
I have made some initial strides in both genres, jotting down stories that cover everything from past generations to the twists and turns my life with Stefano took after we left the circus. I also love to write about food and travel, and I have been experimenting with the outline of a mystery. Which of these projects will flourish into a full-fledged manuscript remains to be seen – and I wouldn’t have it any other way at this time. I like to live in the moment as much as possible.

Thanks so much to Kathleen for her thoughtful responses.  To visit all of the stops on her book tour visit the link below.

Elephant Tent Banner

 

 

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December 29, 2014 · 10:45 am

Review-Far and Near: On Days Like These by Neil Peart

I was thrilled when I received a review copy of this book from the publisher, ECW Press.  Travel writing is one of my favorite genres and I have read, and enjoyed, a few of the other travel memoirs written by this author.  And as a further disclaimer, I have enjoyed listening to and going to Rush concerts for many, many years.  However, as far as Rush’s music is concerned, I tend to be more of a Geddy Lee fan (sorry Neil).

My Review:

Far and NearIn the intro to his work, Neil Peart makes it a point to discuss the art of writing and the special attention he gives to his craft.  Although the writings which are contained in this book first appeared as a series of pieces on his blog, Neil puts quite a bit of effort in perfecting this collection for his audience.  He sites the Roman poet Ovid: “If the art is concealed, it succeeds.”  The passage to which Neil refers is actually from Ovid’s story about the artist Pygmalion from his epic poem The Metmorphoses. 

Pygmalion cannot find the perfect woman, who is chaste and wholesome and faithful and matches his ideal of what a perfect woman should be.  So as an artist and sculptor he decides to make his own “woman.”  As he is working with the ivory, the figure of a woman he sculpts is so flawless that one would think she is alive.  The brilliance of Pygmalion’s art hides the fact that his sculpture is indeed art and not actually alive.

Like Pygmalion, Neil strives to perfect his art, whether it be drumming or writing, so that all the listener or reader sees is the seamless, finished product. Far and Near is first and foremost a travelogue of Neil Peart’s trips on his motorcycle from venue to venue while he is on tour with his band.  His narratives take place over a three year period of time, on the second leg of the band’s “Time Machine Tour” and on all three legs of the band’s “Clockwork Angel’s Tour.”  When the book opens, Neil is on the road in April with his longtime friend and riding partner, Michael.  I have lived on the east coast of the United States all my life but Neil’s detailed description of springtime in this part of the country, as different flowers are resurrected and animals start to peak out of their winter hibernation, makes me appreciate it all the more.  The vivid depictions of every place he travels, whether it be in the extreme heat of the desert or perilous roads of the British countryside or the brutal cold of a Canadian winter, makes one want to visit and experience these places for oneself.  Isn’t this the true mark of a successful travel memoir?

Far and Near is so much more than a travelogue.  It is also a book of wonderful photography, a brief history of many small towns in North American and Europe and a history of the flora and fauna of those places as well.  The book further serves as a personal memoir of the author as he reminisces about previous experiences at each place he visits. Not only are pictures of the various touring destinations included in the book, but there are also descriptions of the photographic techniques that are employed for different situations.

A point is made to capture many of the small towns where these “shunpikers” (those who purposely avoid the most direct roads from one point to another) ride and oftentimes an interesting history is provided about these out-of-the-way places.  As a classicist, I was particularly impressed that Neil gives a bit of the history of Roman occupation of Britain as he is riding around the English countryside.

Finally, the book captures the life of a musician both on the road and off.  The band’s triumphant introduction into the Rock-And-Roll Hall of Fame is related at length in one of the entries.  Neil would not be “on the road” going from place to place, after all, if it were not for his job with a touring rock band.  Although this is certainly not the sole focus of the book, the reader is led to understand what the emotional and physical effects of constant touring and months on the road can cause.  The stories about his young daughter, Olivia, who doesn’t quite understand that “Daddy is at work” are particularly touching.  It is also entertaining to read about the many other crew members that all contribute to making a successful show possible; from the drum technician, to Neil’s riding partners, to the bus driver, to the crew members who entertain the band by dressing up in a chicken suit, it truly takes a small village to put on a show every night.  The sum of all these moving parts means that, once again, the art conceals the art.

Far and Near appeals to a very broad audience of readers; if you enjoy travel writing, memoirs, photography, or the music of Rush you will want to read this book.  In the end, the gods grant Pygmalion his wish and they make his statue become a live woman.  Neil Peart, through his book, makes the art of traveling, writing, playing music and his quest to live his life to the fullest come fully alive to his readers.

About The Author:

Neil PeartNeil Peart is a Canadian musician and author. He is best-known as the drummer and lyricist for the rock band Rush.

Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario, Canada (now part of St. Catharines) working the occasional odd job. However, his true ambition was to become a professional musician. During adolescence, he floated from regional band to regional band and dropped out of high school to pursue a career as a full-time drummer. After a discouraging stint in England to concentrate on his music, Peart returned home, where he joined local Toronto band Rush in the summer of 1974.

Early in his career, Peart’s performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon and John Bonham, players who were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene. As time progressed, however, he began to emulate the jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. Peart is also a pupil of jazz instructor Freddie Gruber. Peart has received many awards for his musical performances and is known for his technical proficiency and stamina.

In addition to being a musician, Peart is also a prolific writer, having published several memoirs about his travels. Peart is also Rush’s primary lyricist. In writing lyrics for Rush, Peart addressed universal themes and diverse subject matter including science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy, as well as secular, humanitarian and libertarian themes. In contrast, his books have been focused on his personal experiences

 

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September 5, 2014 · 12:00 am

Guest Post: Alistair McGuiness, author of Round the Bend (travel memoir)

Today I am excited to welcome author Alistair McGuiness to the Book Binder’s Daughter.  He has put together a preview, with some great pictures of his travel memoir entitled Round the Bend.  This is a stop on his blog tour hosted by Pump Up Your Book.  Scroll down to the end of the post to see all of the stops on this tour.

Round the Bend

Guest Post: 
Round the Bend is a travelogue of adventures, as we,  Alistair and Fran, use redundancy as a catalyst for change. The story starts with a factory closure, which prompts a rethink of life and ends with a new life in Australia.

Australia

Australia

When the factory closed its gates for the final time, we were left with 2 choices. We had come to a fork in the road. The low road meant staying local- playing it safe and never leaving home. The high road meant global travel, migration to Australia and an uncertain future. We chose the high road, not knowing that it would eventually lead us across 3 continents and 13 countries.

Our first stop was Ecuador.

Round the bend pic 3

Map of Ecuador

 

“The five-hour bus journey from Quito offered glimpses of what lay ahead, as the road weaved through small villages that hung close to deep ravines. Gradually, pockets of jungle began to appear, competing with the cleared land littered with scrawny cows that picked at the scorched grass. Some fields displayed single, majestic hardwood trees that for some unknown reason had survived the clearing and stood awkwardly amongst the straggling domestic herds that chewed on the parched scrub. As Tena approached, the humidity on the bus steadily climbed as we entered the heart of Ecuador.”

Within weeks of leaving Ecuador, we were stuck in Bolivian traffic jams.

Round the bend pic 4

Stuck in Bolivia

Months later, we left South America and trekked to the summit of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. The summit day was painful but the experience was unforgettable.

Round the bend pic 5

The Top of Kilimanjaro

“Tiny pockets of cloud drifted over our feet, following the gentle contours of the crater. To our left stood the shining buttress of Furtwängler Glacier, thicker and taller than imagined. How must this sight have been to early explorers who would have had to traverse its formidable ridges to reach the summit? The first rays of sun touched the glacier, replacing darkness with a stirring blaze of pinks as we moved steadily along the crater to Uhuru peak.”

 

From the snows of Kilimanjaro, we headed across Africa to the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Round the bend pic 6

Botswana

 

“Papyrus reeds towered over us as we glided through clear waters. At each turn we discovered small lagoons, littered with speckled green lily pads, while the air hissed with dragonflies darting across the millpond. The afternoon was a sensual daze, interrupted by treks onto low-lying islands in search of distant game, which shimmered on the horizon. Open-billed storks churned through mud in search of fresh water mussels, ignoring chatter from white-faced ducks that nested nearby. Before dusk we made camp on a small island, cooking stew on an open fire and constructing a shelter of tarpaulins draped from branches. The sun dripped below the horizon, coating the lingering clouds in a velvety sheen, and our world turned to darkness.”

Happy travels,
Alistair

About The Author:
Alistair McGuinessAlistair McGuiness grew up in the UK in a town called Luton, which lies 30 miles north of London. Family holidays were spent in County Donegal, Ireland, staying with his Grandmother in their large family home where she had once raised fifteen children.

It was these annual trips that made Alistair realise his Great Uncles were Seanachaís (Irish story tellers). After a few pints of Guinness in the family bar, brothers Barney and Francis would entertain the evening crowds with their recitations of life in rural Ireland. As their rustic voices carried across the crowded room, Alistair would watch and listen as the animated tales mesmorised the overseas visitors.

44 countries and four decades later, Alistair now calls Australia home and in the tradition of Great Uncles Barney and Francis, loves to recite stories. He lives between the beach and the forest with his wife, two young boys and a fun puppy called Peppi. After decades of adventurous escapades Alistair is calming down and has decided to write more and bungee jump less!

He works as a Business Improvement Specialist and has just spent three years as a fly in fly out employee at a remote iron ore mine site in Western Australia. As a trainer and facilitator, he has worked in Europe and Australia and is passionate about helping people and organisations to become successful.

A fun family day for Alistair would be fishing from the local jetty with his boys, taking the puppy for a walk along the beach at sunset and cooking a scrumptious curry in the evening with his wife. An ideal adventurous day for Alistair would be a days walking and scrambling in the Lake District with friends, followed by a visit to a village pub nestled deep in the English countryside.

Connect with Alistair-
Website:  http://www.thecreativenomad.co/
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/thecreativenomad
Twitter:  @amcguinness1

Click on the banner below to follow the rest of the blog tour for Round the Bend where you can read reviews of Alistair’s book.  Thanks so much to Pump Up Your Book for hosting this tour.

Round the Bend banner

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