Dec 25, 2009
SOURCE: "Writing Autobiography," in I Can't Stay Long, Atheneum, 1976, pp. 49-53.
[In the essay below, originally written in 1975, Lee discusses the writing process particularly as it applies to autobiography.]
Autobiography can be the laying to rest of ghosts as well as an ordering of the mind. But for me it is also a celebration of living and an attempt to hoard its sensations.
In common with other writers I have written little that was not for the most part autobiographical. The spur for me is the fear of evaporation—erosion, amnesia, if you like—the fear that a whole decade may drift gently away and leave nothing but a salt-caked mud-flat.
A wasting memory is not only a destroyer; it can deny one's very existence. A day unremembered is like a soul unborn, worse than if it had never been. What indeed was that summer if it is not recalled? That journey? That act of love? To whom did it...
[The entire page is 1684 words long]
©2000-2009
Enotes.com Inc.
All Rights Reserved