Memoir Reflections

 Mary Karr's take on memoirs was intriguing to read, as it is very honest and straightforward about recalling memories and recollecting our feelings from the past. I liked how she made the point that "One minute you're a grown-ass woman, then a whiff of cumin conjures your dad's curry, and a whole door to the past blows open, ushering in uncanny detail." The idea that different sensations can bring up very specific memories from years ago, which she teaches her students (ie. when she says she faked a fight and one student joked he'd sue because it brought up the trauma of his parents fighting) specifically is interesting. Atwan, on the other hand, brings up Piaget and Freud's ideas of falsified childhood memories which we are told about for long periods of time seemingly becoming visual memories that we think we can recall. This is especially interesting as we know that we don't really start retaining fluid memories until we are about 4,5,6 years old, and anything before that we are usually told about. And we think about, or hear from others the specifics, of this memory that we build a visual narrative of it to the point where we feel as though we do remember it.

I really liked Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal and how Winterson details the tumultuous relationship she has with her adoptive mother. From her having this void that can't be filled by her parents, to her mothers obsession with religion to her becoming self-aware when she goes to college and writes her first book at 25, it's somewhat more relatable than what you'd find in a celebrity memoir. Winterson also brings up the point that "Adopted children are self-invented because we have to be; there is an absence, a void, a question mark at the very beginning of our lives... A crucial part of our story is gone." This sort of ties into the ideas Atwan brought up from Piaget and Freud about the invention of memories in childhood that we are not actually aware of, but have thought about so much in detail that we are sure they're real. This also ties into when Winterson talks about her book and a character, Elsie, who was based off an imaginary friend from childhood which acted as a form of personifying this memory of safety she longed for as a child, to have a barrier between her and her mother.