Memoir-ish

That’s the word I used on FB to describe my mental search for ithe third book in the trilogy I’d been meaning to blog about.  I hadn’t read it too long ago. I thought it would fit into a blog post with the other two. I could remember that it was not a memoir like the other two but more memoir-ish.  But I’d read it a couple of months ago and just couldn’t remember.

Then this morning I was reading the WSJ – and – okay.  That was it. Got it.

So a brief blog post on that trilogy of memoir-ish books and one other, read this week for a book club.

Chinaberry Sideawalks is singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell’s memoir of his pretty hardscrabble childhood down in Houston and environs.  I enjoyed (doesn’t seem quite right to use that word to describe the reading of a book about abuse and anger…appreciated?) much of the book although it left me with questions.  The writing was a bit too self-conscious and as is the case when I read any childhood memoir I wonder how useful the piece is as memoir.  I can barely remember last month, and without aid of a journal, couldn’t write much beyond the basics about anything that happened over ten years ago without continually questioning my own memories. How much is my memory and how much is me remembering remembering?

So deeply detailed childhood memoirs – even those recounting memorable events – often leave me wondering – not about retention of external details so much as descriptions of the author’s childhood inner life.

I was also puzzled by Crowell’s stance toward his parents.  Perhaps I read it too fast – that’s always a possibility – but I didn’t get it.  His father was quite abusive to his mother – who was no silent victim, but still. Abuse is abuse.  As the book goes on and Crowel moves into adulthood, while he certainly doesn’t approve of his father’s behavior – far from it – he still characterizes his father as a hero of sorts to him, and unironically. In my mind, he doesn’t explore this tension enough .

Breakfast with the Pope is Susan Vigilante’s account of life and spiritual struggles: infertility, illnesses of family members, death, the dynamics of friendship and vocation.  I’m often asked for book suggestions for (particularly) women’s groups in Catholic parishes, and I think this would be a good choice that many would enjoy.

Crazy U - that’s the one I couldn’t think of until I was reminded by Andrew Ferguson’s op-ed in today’s WSJ (essentially an excerpt for the book.)  The book didn’t merit slipping from my mind – it’s very good!

As a very long-time Andrew Ferguson fangirl, I was excited to see that he had written about the topic of college admissions – one that absorbs me in a cyclical sort of way.  In the book, Ferguson chronicles the year (+) he spent with his son on the college admissions train and does so not just through personal narrative but through – not surprisingly – presenting the fruits of his research into various areas  as well.  There’s more of the latter than I expected, and since I’ve spent enough time studying up on the vagaries of college admissions and the games of the College Board as well as its history and critics, I wasn’t terribly interested in those parts – although the Ferguson Take on any subject is always enjoyable.

What I enjoyed most in Crazy U was the personal narrative, especially Ferguson’s descriptions of the way parents of the college-bound converse and suss each other out, as well as his conflicted feelings about his oldest flying the coop.

The sections that made me laugh the most in recognition were the accounts of the actual application and essay-writing process – I mean, thinking about that period makes me shudder even now, a year and a half later – as well as Ferguson’s descriptions of his forays into the College Confidential Message Board. Oh, Lord, yes.  Ferguson was told to avoid them, but disobeyed the advice, as did I.   Repeatedly.  Every time I’d venture over there, I’d be filled with the same feelings of horrified intimidation, inadequacy and shame as I do when I ignore my better instincts and venture to  the blogs of uber-homeschoolers and uber-DIY-crafters. There’s only so many cheerful but clearly strained posts-from-the-edge of overachieving Tiger Cubs pleading for fellow posters to “Chance Me!” (shorthand for: tell me if my 4.87 GPA/Seattle Symphony 1st chair/Haitian orphanage directorship will get me into Harvard) that you can read before you go over the edge.

If you’ve got a child toddling up to that stage in life, I’d recommend Crazy U – in fact I recommended it just today to someone in my book group. After I gave her the stern advice to not allow her child to apply to more than five colleges – at the very most.  Better yet – just one. One is good.

Now for the non-memoirish book: The Imperfectionists. It’s a novel about an English-language newspaper based in Rome – its rise and fall, interspersed with individual narratives of various reporters, copy editors and publishers.  The book received high praise from some quarters and I’m baffled why.  There are a number of faults (flat writing, superficial characterization, a couple of particularly bad chapters playing not on character but on caricature)  but the one I’ll hone in on is the missing opportunity of place – Rome.  Landmarks and the general shape of Rome are accounted for, but not much about living in Rome, especially for the ex-pat.  My “experience” of this is second hand, but I’ve known several Americans who’ve lived in Rome for a time, including one of my sons, who lived there for almost a year and a half.

From what I’ve absorbed from the stories, the experience of living in Rome is characterized by a specific dynamic: loving the Italian lifestyle  while being constantly and deeply  frustrated by..the Italian lifestyle.   I just don’t think you can write about American ex-pats living in Rome without reference to that tension.  As it was, aside from a few cultural references, The Imperfectionists could have been set anywhere, and I was disappointed at that, for I was looking forward to reading it because I’m so intrigued by Italian life myself as well as the way non-Italians navigate within it.

*I’ve also spent about two months now reading a Google e-book of a 2-volume 19th century translation of a  biography of St. Charles Borromeo by one of his contemporaries. I had hoped to have it finished by the time I went to Milan, but that didn’t happen.  I’m about halfway through the second volume.  Although it’s hagiography, it’s still interesting.  I’d really love to read a relatively modern biography as well – although there doesn’t seem to be one in English?

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