Memoirs are tricky business. As someone who writes almost exclusively about things that have happened to me, I am interested in the ethics and conventions of the memoir. James Frey aside, there was also the whole hullabaloo with Augusten Burroughs settling with the foster family portrayed in “Running With Scissors” and changing the author’s note in the book after publication. And there’s been talk that there is just no way in hell that David Sedaris’ family is that concisely funny. (Although, Amy has publicly proved herself funny, so you never know)
The LA Times book blog points out a pre-emptive move made by another memoirist:

… Robert Leleux’s “The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy” … A note to readers is prominently displayed on the page preceding the table of contents. Here’s an excerpt:

“This is the story of my Texas life. And while (essentially) true to my experience, I must warn that it often reads better (as in funnier, or happier) than it was lived. This service I’ve performed not merely for the sake of your sensibilities, but also for my art. After all, how does the old song go? A hat’s not a hat till it’s tilted. Well, mea culpa, I have tilted hats throughout….”

Is this the literary equivalent of a warning label that serves only to invalidate legal claims? Or is it a sign that our expectations for truth and accuracy in memoirs are changing?

I have always been cynical about memoirs and assumed that they were a fiction/non-fiction hybrid more than an accurate retelling of events. It’s frequently left me wondering what all the fuss in these ’scandals’ is about. Of course, I’ve also never been written about in a published book. I’ve never had anyone put words in my mouth I didn’t say or attribute someone else’s personality quirks to me to save time and keep the pacing quick.

–Marcia

I prize clarity in writing above linguistic cartwheels. But am I straying away from the “big words” (or more accurately, obscure words) out of fear in a way that is slowly homogenizing my writing? Am I ignoring something that could enhance my writing?

In a book otherwise devoted to simple, straightforward writing, the style manual The Complete Plain Words, Sir Ernest Gowers takes a moment to remind us that ostentatiously avoiding long words can be as annoying to readers as over-using them. Winston Churchill, writes Gowers, promoted the virtue of the short and simple phrase; yet it was Churchill, in his account of the second world war, who talked about “flocculent” thinking, instead of “woolly” thinking, “and so conveys to his readers just that extra ounce of contempt that we feel ‘flocculent’ to contain, perhaps because the combination of ‘f’ and ‘l’ so often expresses an invertebrate state, as in ‘flop’, ‘flap’, ‘flaccid’, ‘flimsy’, ‘flabby’ and ‘filleted.’” – From the Guardian

Do people go to a dictionary when they don’t know a word in a piece of writing, or do they just go away period?  Is there a balance between unknown words and the plain language of the everyday? How much is too much?

I guess the bigger question would be … do I even know those wild and crazy words in the first place?

-marcia