As you embark on something like this, as you comb through the years, you are confronted with something like an identity parade of former selves. Here they come, shuffling into the white room, in front of the black horizontal bars, all dressed differently (up until around the age of 40 at any rate), all with slightly different haircuts, different ideas about the world, all awkwardly taking their place in the line-up and squinting at the two-way glass. Aspects of all these personas have been jettisoned along the way to get you to whoever you are now. The Usual Rejects. Some of these old versions of you will be more familiar than others, but, for most of us, they will all be shuffling around twitchily to some degree or other. Guilty. How do you rate these old selves? Look back ten or fifteen or twenty years. What was that guy like? How would you rank them in the pantheon of former selves? […]
But, still, here they both are, next to each other in the line-up, squinting into the glare, taking their turn stepping forward – ‘OK, you deadbeats. Start talking.’ Some of them you just want to fetch a mug of tea for. To roll out the good cop, the guy who will say, ‘Hey, you were young, don’t be too hard on yourself kid.’ But there are others, the real offenders, who you want to grab by the lapels and scream, ‘Are you kidding me with this shit?’ You want to reach back through the years and drag them down to the cells, where you will turn off the recording equipment and get busy with the rubber pipe and the rolled telephone book.
Because that’s what it feels like to me, the memoir. A forced confession.
― John Niven, O Brother (Canongate Books, August 24, 2023)
Notes:
- Book Review & Portrait of John Niven via Herald Scotland: “Author John Niven on his moving family memoir O Brother” August 19 2023
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I find the whole concept of memoirs really interesting. What we remember of our various iterations, is steeped in emotional moments dependent on how we’re feeling, how sensitized we are, etc..In other words, it is true to the writer and arguably not fact-based for the reader. I love the idea of all our former selves appearing in a line-up – with the caveat that my thoughts on each of those selves is truth for me and fiction for those who knew me at the time and recalling someone entirely different. Hope this makes sense – but if not, I’m heading for another cup of coffee…
It makes sense. And aligns with more from John Niven:
Most of the literature agrees that our earliest memories date from around the age of three and a half. I am three years and three months old. Gary is ten days shy of his first birthday. Of course, the question that attaches itself to all early memories still applies: do I really remember all of this, or has it been implanted by family retelling? Implanted and then burnished and polished up over the years to the point where, half a century later, I can recall it as surely as I can recall this morning’s breakfast.
― John Niven, O Brother (Canongate Books, August 24, 2023)
Indeed…that’s it!! Far far more eloquently stated!
Oh, I don’t know about that. It’s missing the Mimi-ness!
Awwww…thank you Dave!!
To me, what you wrote is perfectly clear Mimi, and beautifully written! Have a great day 🙂
Thank you!! Have a terrific day!😊
such an interesting perspective to look back upon a life and choose what to include and what not to include, and how you remember it and tell it
Oh Brother, this sounds like the title of a book you write.
Hey there! I just wanted to say “hi“ to “The Spicy One“ (that’s intended to be a compliment!). Have a wonderful day Sawsan 😊
(I feel an attack from David coming on lol)
Right!
Technical “nitpick“… Shouldn’t this read: “One way mirror“? What the heck is a two-way mirror? It’s either clear glass, or mirrored on both sides, so neither side can see the other. (I don’t get it.)
Correction: “two-way glass“.
Great question!
Another observation: I find this passage very dark. It leaves no openings for the good things that we may have done in our past.
Truth!
To be able to let go of those past selves is a gift. What a singular perspective.
Yes!
An interesting way to look back at who we were in various stages of our lives.
So true!
Oh goodness, I was expecting to disagree with the author’s selves-assessment. I cannot. At ungodly-a.m., it’s not the nicely-memoirable me that stumbles into the brain over the pattern in more normal folks’ linoleums!
HA! Truth!
Such a process, each step taken, builds, shapes as we arrive to the present moment in which as we take a new breath…it all continues to compound, as we move forward…(PS seems that perhaps, John Niven, had some rough times along his journey?)
He and his Brother sure did.
Insightful awareness of ourselves can be a gift and a burden in life. He has a well worn face and I hope has found peace 🙏
Yes. Well said Val.