Starting at the end of exams and continuing over the summer I went through a phase of reading autobiographies. Prior to this I’d never been keen at all on non-fiction, even less so on autobiographies, so I don’t really know what triggered the sudden switch. From a psychological point of view maybe I was subconsciously desiring to see how other real lives had played out, given that I was on the cusp of beginning my own ‘real life’ (we all know Cambridge doesn’t strictly count as real). During this period I read three notable books; I’m With the Band by Pamela Des Barres, Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher and Wild by Cheryl Strayed – all of these books are incredible and I cannot recommend them enough. I finished all of these a few months ago now, but like a bad breakup, I’m still not over them, I can’t stop turning them over and over in my mind. Perhaps as a result I’m finding it difficult/near impossible to engage properly with fiction at the moment, a little voice in my head won’t stop saying; ‘yes but do you actually care what happens, it’s not real, this didn’t happen’. These autobiographies came along at just the right time; during the last months of Cambridge and for a little while afterwards I felt more awake to reality and more in touch with my place in it than I ever had before (disclaimer: I did not take LSD) – this was not a moment for fiction when the real world was so utterly compelling.
A common idea about fiction is that it’s our tool to escape, I believe autobiography as a genre is the exact opposite of this. Because the events being recounted actually occurred, we are forced to face them with the author – the most human and genuine problems presented to us by a genuine human voice. The best autobiographies are written with unflinching honesty, at certain points we should know that the writer is uncomfortable with what they are telling us, that they are offering to the world a self-confessed uncomfortable truth about their deepest selves. This is part of the bravery of self-narration and also part of the catharsis.
I originally started this blog in order to reclaim my own narrative that I felt had been taken from me (see the sass that started it all here), since then I guess it’s become an autobiographical space of sorts. At the beginning I was so so scared of writing about myself - I didn’t want to do something narcissistic. I was also worried that what I had to say wasn’t worth saying, because who am I but another 21 year-old dot on the planet. FOOL. Why would I ask who I was to write about anything when there was only ever one possible answer anyway: myself. I exist within a narration and have a voice to share it and, given these two very fortunate circumstances, it would be almost rude to keep myself to myself. The women whose autobiographies I’ve read have led incredible lives, but that does not make mine any less extraordinary – in any autobiographical narrative the same things crop up, and this is because they are the things which make up the crazy experience of a life being lived.
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| Still not a narcissist |
Even though this is bad marketing, possibly encouraging competition in blogland (got ma eyes on you), I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone do a bit of self-narration, don’t let anyone tell you your life isn’t interesting enough to be recorded – it damn well is. Though this cry is universal it goes out especially to women; men have been navel-gazing for years, writing women for centuries, dominating the autobiography for bloody ages – create your own narrative, come and claim what’s yours.
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