Ethics of Autobiography
I made it to an interesting early evening talk on 'The Ethics of Autobiography' at Ivy House in Golder's Green, part of the Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival. Speakers were Judith Summers and Justine Picardie, both of whom have written not only novel length fiction and feature journalism, but also memoirs based on personal bereavment; Judith Summers of her husband and Justine Picardie of her sister Ruth. Now you know I'm not a dog person, but Summers' book 'My Life With George: The Inspirational Story of How a Wilful Dog brought Joy to a Bereaved Family' did sound both authentic and heartwarming - whimsical in the title perhaps, but encapsulating the message of the book that life does go on. Summers talked with sincerity about the necessity to be true to your own experiences while maintaining ethical boundaries. It's very much ok to show oneself as less than perfect when under the extreme pressure of caring for someone who is very ill. But writing out of bitterness towards another is less advisable, not the least because such published writing is liable to stick around. The 'revenge narrative', though it may seem enticing enough at the time, isn't the best of motives for picking up your pen/ opening your laptop.
As perfect example of the embarrassing trivia such motivation can produce Summers read a perfectly dreadful extract from Jordan's autobiography where she details, tastelessly and excruciatingly, her romp with Dwight Yorke, listing not only the different positions ('but they all revolved around him') but the disappointment she felt when he didn't perform as well as a previous guy. Eeuch. I might reference that in class later on this year though. Although, seeing the phenomenal success of Jordan's tome, which she almost certainly didn't write herself, is it an example of commercial book success just as much as one of abject literary failure, and should I be pointing this out too? Mind you, you'd have to be a celeb to have anyone interested in reading writing of such (low) calibre. Anyway.
Equally interesting were Justine Picardie’s contributions: the loss of her sister columnist Ruth Picardie (‘Before I say goodbye’) left her, as she commented, literally ‘Ruth-less’, but she maintained a far higher ethical level in her own subsequent writing. I was going to buy her book ‘If the Spirit Moves You: Love and Life After Death’ which documents the searches she made for her sister through the channels offered by mediums; the travels she took and interviews she had. But the few copies sold out. I did find a column she’d written on the subject (here). Interesting, poignant stuff; and of course no easy communications were forthcoming – so the book certainly isn’t a Doris Stokes-type testimony. I’ve often wondered what would happen if I made efforts to contact my dad through this sort of service. But I haven’t wondered enough to try it. I think Dad will contact me through dreams if he needs to or is able. And perhaps he does, occasionally.
So I bought Picardie’s ‘Daphne’ instead: a ‘literary mystery’ based on romantic novelist Daphne DuMaurier’s failing marriage and fascination with Branwell Bronte; DuMaurier’s story mediated through the consciousness of a later research student and writer with problems of her own. All are searching for contact, for answers, for a psychically-confirmed re-imagining of someone: in the novel, ‘[Daphne DuMaurier] wondered if Branwell might made his presence felt at a séance, and what would he say, if he did? Would he still be a hopeless reprobate, asking for a sovereign to spend on gin and laudanum, or would his spirit have been purified?’ DuMaurier even buys some laudanum herself but pours it away, ‘terrified of what she might see or hear whilst under its influence’. There is a sort of vertiginous terror in this sort of searching – terror both of who the other may have become, and of what visions we may conjure from within ourselves. And here we are beyond ethics as such and facing complexities of faith; in one’s own resources as much as in any afterlife. This I doubt I will use in class discussion, but don’t think I will forget either.
As perfect example of the embarrassing trivia such motivation can produce Summers read a perfectly dreadful extract from Jordan's autobiography where she details, tastelessly and excruciatingly, her romp with Dwight Yorke, listing not only the different positions ('but they all revolved around him') but the disappointment she felt when he didn't perform as well as a previous guy. Eeuch. I might reference that in class later on this year though. Although, seeing the phenomenal success of Jordan's tome, which she almost certainly didn't write herself, is it an example of commercial book success just as much as one of abject literary failure, and should I be pointing this out too? Mind you, you'd have to be a celeb to have anyone interested in reading writing of such (low) calibre. Anyway.
Equally interesting were Justine Picardie’s contributions: the loss of her sister columnist Ruth Picardie (‘Before I say goodbye’) left her, as she commented, literally ‘Ruth-less’, but she maintained a far higher ethical level in her own subsequent writing. I was going to buy her book ‘If the Spirit Moves You: Love and Life After Death’ which documents the searches she made for her sister through the channels offered by mediums; the travels she took and interviews she had. But the few copies sold out. I did find a column she’d written on the subject (here). Interesting, poignant stuff; and of course no easy communications were forthcoming – so the book certainly isn’t a Doris Stokes-type testimony. I’ve often wondered what would happen if I made efforts to contact my dad through this sort of service. But I haven’t wondered enough to try it. I think Dad will contact me through dreams if he needs to or is able. And perhaps he does, occasionally.
So I bought Picardie’s ‘Daphne’ instead: a ‘literary mystery’ based on romantic novelist Daphne DuMaurier’s failing marriage and fascination with Branwell Bronte; DuMaurier’s story mediated through the consciousness of a later research student and writer with problems of her own. All are searching for contact, for answers, for a psychically-confirmed re-imagining of someone: in the novel, ‘[Daphne DuMaurier] wondered if Branwell might made his presence felt at a séance, and what would he say, if he did? Would he still be a hopeless reprobate, asking for a sovereign to spend on gin and laudanum, or would his spirit have been purified?’ DuMaurier even buys some laudanum herself but pours it away, ‘terrified of what she might see or hear whilst under its influence’. There is a sort of vertiginous terror in this sort of searching – terror both of who the other may have become, and of what visions we may conjure from within ourselves. And here we are beyond ethics as such and facing complexities of faith; in one’s own resources as much as in any afterlife. This I doubt I will use in class discussion, but don’t think I will forget either.
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