Blake Morrison is the quintessential man of letters. More exactly, he’s a man of genres – poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, librettist and, most notably, memoirist. (Four memoirs so far, each a prize winner and/or bestseller). Although in the introduction to On Memoir he refutes the notion that he established the genre of life writing in the UK (he was professor of creative and life writing at Goldsmiths University, London for 20 years) or that he has ‘encouraged its growth’, he has somehow become its guru, the critic every literary editor turns to on the publication of yet another raw family story or celebrity revelation. He may have popularised memoir, but the boom in life writing is as much due to creative writing courses, self-publishing, social media, vanishing privacy and dissolving taboos as Morrison’s own memoirs. For above and beyond all else, Morrison is a reader.
On Memoir begins where most books end – with ‘A’ for Acknowledgments – and ends with a 14-page Bibliography that’s a reading list to die for. In his Introduction, Morrison says that he’s spent three decades as a life writer and wants to reflect on ‘why it has become so central to our literary culture, how it works, who it’s aimed at and why it offers something that fiction and poetry can’t’. He writes of the compulsion behind each of his own books, including this one. It is as much a how-to book as a how-not-to book; it’s as much about current literary issues (cancellation, appropriation, exploitation, pronouns) as it is about the ever-expanding categories encompassed by life writing (blogs, autofiction); and it’s as much – probably more – about reading as it is about writing.
But does this A-Z format work? I get as far as ‘E’ (Editors, Embarrassment, Ethics) before thinking that a more accurate title would be Morrison’s Pensées; and I’m up to ‘L’ (Lawyers, Lies, Lyric Essay) when I think that the truer title might be Morrison’s Commonplace Book. I begin to wonder if some of the important issues Morrison refers to – ‘truth telling in an age of fake news’, and ‘ethical issues around privacy and consent’ – would have had more clout in the form of essays than in this alphabetical lucky dip. The difficulty is that while the book offers something for everyone it lacks drive. And although Morrison is never less than engaging and knowledgeable, there’s no ‘S’ for Story to keep one reading on.
This is dull of me – dipping can be fun! For instance, which alphabetical letter would you go for? ‘R’ gathers 15 entries, running from Rape through Rejection and Revision to Roth and Rousseau, landing at last at Rules. Then again, the letter ‘I’ might have a particular appeal for writers, including, as it does, Identity, Immortality and Inspiration. There’s lots of encouragement to wannabes (‘to have lived as a down-and-out needn’t stop you from being up-and-in’) and comfort for those telling tales on a family member (‘when a writer is born into a family, that family will have an afterlife’). From ‘T’ (Therapy, Trauma) to ‘V’ (Vengeance, Voice), life writing gets tougher. But this is an essential reference book, and when stuck for inspiration – well, you can always Dip. Once past Writer’s Block, I’m ready to Skip. Particularly to the Bibliography.
There’s all you want to know in this Bibliography, wonderfully organised in categories (no, not A-Z). It begins with Classics (Pepys, St Augustine); goes on to Modern Classics (Annie Ernaux, Joan Didion); Highly Recommended (Jenny Diski, Alan Bennett); Poetry (Ted Hughes, Sharon Olds); Reflections and Guidance on Writing (David Lodge, Mary Karr); and ends with eight pages of Quoted from, Discussed or Recommended (J.R. Ackerley to Lea Ypi).
Past Dip and Skip to Next: Afterburn, Morrison’s new collection of poems, his first in 11 years. The poems cover much of the family territory of Morrison’s memoirs – parents and sisters – only here more heartfelt and poignant. A number of lyrical nature poems catch you by surprise with an unexpected image (a fallen ladybird ‘wriggling like misdirected sperm’). There’s two angrily satirical poems, ‘Peace process’ and ‘A compilation of terrorists’, diary-like observations that tell a story (a discarded mattress in a lay-by, a lost glove), and collage poems culled from Elizabeth Bishop’s letters. Morrison can inject the everyday with grace, as in ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’, which reports a woman smiling at him in the street, the dentist being pleased with his flossing and ends with: ‘I’m still capable of being in love.’
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