Week 5: Fluidity

If anyone here saw the movie “Joker”, then I don’t have to tell you how annoying an unreliable narrator can be. If one is telling a story then they should be doing their best to ensure that the story they tell is a true one, from their perspective at least. Fluidity is unavoidable in the human mind. The thing I remember one way today, I could remember entirely differently tomorrow. Our memories are clouded and colored by our current moods, the wisdom of time and the knowledge of what happened next.
I know how I felt after my first car accident, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you how I felt immediately prior to it. If I was putting this incident into a memoir, I’d have to include that prior to part as well, wouldn’t I? How would I pull that off? I could make an educated guess, but it would in the end be just that, a guess. In writing a memoir then it’s probably best to stay away from pointed assertions about what you did, how you did it and where. Unless, that is, the event in question is so indelibly ingrained in your memory you couldn’t possibly forget it.
https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-News-Memoir-Martin-Fletcher/dp/B0091MEICO
My favorite memoir is in the link above. It is called Breaking News and it is by Martin Fletcher. Fletcher was a television journalist and foreign correspondent for NBC and the BBC. In the book he talks about his start in journalism and some of his most important stories. My favorite quote from the book is this one. “The fact that I could have been blown to bits just didn’t play a role. I was on automatic.” This is from early on in the book and I won’t ruin the story. Suffice it to say this passage was incredibly impactful and if you have any interest I highly recommend this book. It’s a spectacular read.
If I found out that any of this book was untrue or embellished, it would entirely wreck it for me. The most intriguing part of these stories is that they all actually happened. If that changed it would be like removing the bottom of the Jenga stack, the whole thing collapses. I think that this book could translate to a blog quite well. It might even be improved there because the author could add media relating to the stories.