When Memory Speaks
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REVIEW BY ROGER BISHOP
Jill Ker Conway describes autobiography as "our favorite form of fiction." A distinguished and best-selling autobiographer herself (The Road to Coorain and True North) as well as a scholar of autobiography, she knows the genre well. In her stimulating and enlightening new book, When Memory Speaks, she gives us historical perspective on autobiography, emphasizing how gender, race, and societal attitudes have influenced what autobiographers write about themselves. "For men," she notes, "the overarching pattern for life comes from adaptations of the epic hero in classic antiquity. Life is an odyssey, a journey through many trials and tests, which the hero must surmount alone through courage, endurance, cunning and moral strength . . . His achievement comes about through his own agency . . ." With St. Augustine, the odyssey in time moved from the external world to the inner consciousness. Rousseau's Confessions brought us a "secular hero creating himself," the story "of the individual against society." Classic antiquity was not helpful in the same way for women. "It was within the special enclave of religious life that the tradition of Western European women's autobiography was first established, in narratives about the autobiographer's relationship with God." Therefore women did not discuss "the sense of agency and acting on one's own behalf," which continued in secular narratives. Ker Conway considers the works of both well-known and lesser known writers. Of particular interest are her discussions of contemporary works such as Angela's Ashes and The Liars' Club. The author reminds us that we are all autobiographers, "but few of us give close attention to the forms and tropes of the culture through which we report ourselves to ourselves . . ." She emphasizes the importance of cultivating the power to confidently speak for ourselves out of our understanding of our own experience. She encourages us to find our own voices.
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