Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides

Chapter 4: Memoir as a Self-assertive and Self-censoring Tool

4฀ Memoir as a Self-asserting and Self-censoring Tool Memoirs are always, to a certain degree a revenge on history (Gusdorf, 36 ) [A] sort of curriculum vitae retracing the steps of an official career that, for importance, was hardly more than mediocre (Gusdorf, 37 ) The age is characterized by a need to testify Everywhere in the world women and men are rising up to tell their story out of the now commonly held belief that one's life signifies (Gornick, 5) B efore discussing in detail each of the selected Eurasian memoirs, I wish to consider some generic issue s concerning th e memoirs an d how they stand within the traditions and history of life-writing. The memoir, as a mode of writing through which the memoirist recalls and records her own life story is perhaps one of the most popular forms of autobiographical writing. The autobiographical motivations behind writing memoirs vary . Som e writ e t o preserve , commemorate , celebrat e o r immortalize one's life's experience and achievements. Still others write to confess, explain, to talk back, or to break a silence. But there are also others who write to reinforce a silence, to speak i n order to cover up gaps an d omissions. 38฀ Being Eurasian Memories Across Racial Divides The memoir has never enjoyed a high generic status. It has been viewed as a mode of writing practiced by amateur writers, or as James Olney says, by people who would neither imagin e nor admit that the y were 'writers ' (1980, 4). As Olney has once described it, memoir is often regarde d as the 'least literary' kind of writing in literature. It is the amateur's genre. Some have been of interest mostly to local historians who see them as part of the semi-historical socia l record s an d hav e pai d littl e attentio n t o the m a s writing. Memoirs are often distinguishe d from traditional autobiographies , such as those by St. Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose works are treated with that special reverence give n to great literary texts. Memoirs have often been received with reservation 'a s a kind of stepchild of history and literature, with neither of those disciplines granting it full recognitio n as a respectable subject for study in itself (Olney , 1988 , xui). Under the rubric of autobiography, an umbrella term for self-life-wnting , we can distinguish basicall y thre e overlapping forms of autobiographica l writings: First, th e autobiography , second , th e memoi r an d third , th e autobiographical novel. For our purpose here, I shall look only at the firs t two, since the third kind , with its disguise of autobiography a s the novel, really has quite a different generi c status. The boundary between the firs t two categories, that is , the traditiona l autobiograph y an d th e memoir, is not alway s clear , an d i n man y case s th e tw o term s ar e ofte n use d interchangeably. Most scholar s i n th e pas t tende d t o emphasize an d distinguis h th e difference betwee n autobiography and memoir. Traditional autobiography , such as those by St. Augustine, Marger y Kempe, Bunyan an d Rousseau , belongs to a more elevated form of self-writing tha t focus on th e intens e introspection of an inner life within an interior domain. Its direction delves inward on a kind of teleological itinerary into the self to find an irreducible unified core, stripping away mask after mask of false selves for the true and pure self at the center (Smith , 1993 , 18). It is, therefore, a history of a soul attempting throug h self-scrutin y t o explai n itself . Wit h thi s intens e concentration on the life of the soul, the author's outward life and event s become somewhat blurred. Temporal references to sociopolitical occurrences have relatively little significance and are often relegated to the background. The traditiona l autobiograph y usuall y offer s a continuous , coheren t narrative. Memoir as a Self-asserting and Self-censoring Tool 39 The memoir, unlike the autobiography, usually has less sophisticated structural design s and themati c deliberations Th e memoi r i s often les s connected, mor e fragmented, an d often...