The Self of the Past - Narrated "I"
For many of us, it's difficult to remember what happened last week, let alone what happened years ago, so as readers, we can all sympathize with the difficult task that the memoir writer faces.
Last week's discussion concluded that Narrative "I's job is recalling "details but also, as much as possible, the state of mind of the self of the past." Recollection of the past self brings us to the third component of memoir identity: Narrated "I."
Thus far, in my discussions, I have covered "Historical I" and Narrative "I."
1. Historical "I" – The person producing the memoir.
2. Narrating "I" – Person telling the narrative.
3. Narrated "I" – The version of the self the “Narrating I” is presenting to the reader.
4. Ideological "I" – The cultural, historical, and belief systems embedded in the “I” of the memoir.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, in their Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, explain Narrative "I" is the "agent of discourse" whereas Narrated "I," "is the object "I," the protagonist of the narrative, the version of the self that the Narrative “I” chooses to constitute through recollection for the reader.
So, what does all that mean? One of my goal’s in this blog is breaking down ‘academic speak’ to make the useful ideas it contains accessible to a wider audience. The “agent of discourse” is the one in control of the conversation which is why I like the analogy of “Narrative I” as the holder of a TV remote control.
So, Narrative “I,” the teller of the story, flips to a channel in their past to show
us a version of their past self - the self on the channel is the Narrated "I." The past self is a memory and so has no control over the situation. That’s why Smith and Watson call it an “object ‘I.’” Objects, can only be acted on, they cannot act. The hat you put on your head can’t complain. The family photo you take out of your wallet can’t correct the story you tell about it.
As readers, why do we care about any of this? Because, it reminds us what we are reading is the storyteller’s version of the past. While we read we can think about what and how the storyteller shows us the past. What image of self is the Narrative “I” trying give us? This tells us a lot about their goals for sharing the story and the type of person they are.
So, while the focus of this blog post is Narrated "I" it is quite impossible to talk about it without mentioning the Narrative "I" responsible for creating it.
A great example of Narrative “I” and Narrated “I” interacting in a clearly defined manner is the popular sitcom “The Wonder Years” starring Fred Savage.
The voiceover component is the Narrative “I,” the older self telling the story, and the words and actions of the character Kevin Arnold is the Narrated “I,” the younger self coming to life in the story told. Awareness that all words and actions of the younger self are being channeled through the older self reminds us as readers that no matter how convincing the illusion, it is still the older self voicing all of it. As active readers, we should be alert to if and how the older self is impacting the younger.
Let’s look at a textual example. In the following passage, from My Struggle, author Karl Ove Knaussgard, age 39 at the time of writing, is writing from the perspective of his eight-year-old self watching a news broadcast on television:
I am sitting alone watching, it is some time in spring, I suppose, for my father is working in the garden. I stare at the surface of the sea without listening to what the reporter says, and suddenly the outline of a face emerges.
I don’t know how long it stays there, a few seconds perhaps, but long enough for it to have a huge impact on me. The moment the face disappears I get up to find someone I can tell. My mother is on the evening shift, my brother is playing soccer, and the other children on our block won’t listen, so it has to be Dad, I think, and hurry down the stairs, jump into shoes, thread my arms through the sleeves of my jacket, open the door, and run around the house. We are not allowed to run in the garden, so just before I enter his line of vision, I slow down and start walking.
– Karl Ove Knausgaard
Dialing up the younger self in memoir is often an exercise in remembering while avoiding the thinking of the older self contaminating the younger self so that voice and demeanor come across as naturally and intact as possible. Little details such as “we are not allowed to run in the garden so just before I enter his line of vision, I slow down and start walking” clue us in as readers that Knausgaard is attempting submerge his adult self and let the voice and attitude of his child self come across.
Although the passage is written in present tense, as readers we know this moment is in the past but use of present tense yanks it into the present to experience it anew, as if it is happening again. Crafting the experience in this way allows us as readers relive the past and asks us travel alongside the writer’s narrated “I” for a time.
The extreme level of detail with which Knausgaard recalls this moment provides us with a vivid picture of his childhood but also borders upon absurd. Seriously! Who remembers their childhood this accurately? And I'm not the only one wondering about this. "So are these details and the thousands like them invented?" asks Hari Kunzru in his review for the The Guadian. "Are they perhaps collaged together or reconstructed? Part of Knausgaard's struggle is with truth and memory, a battle to reconstruct the past performed by someone using all the tools of the novel." The "unflinching" honesty of the work is really all we have for an assurance as Knaassgard equally reveals flattering and unflattering details alike.
Due to the intense level of detail here and everywhere in Knaussgard it is tempting to assume much of it is educated guessing, fleshing out the skeleton of a memory. But before we do that, memoir writer Lila Quintero sheds some light on how memoirists recall memories in a guest blog post on Marion Roach Smith’s memoir blog. Quintero explains with “sustained attention deeply buried memories started to resurface” as she was working on her memoir Darkroom. She explains the metaphor of bird-feeding aides her process.
“Associating memory retrieval with the feeding of wild birds helped me adopt a patient, soft-focus approach, as if taking care not to spook memories darting nearby.” - Lila Quintero.
Be sure to check out the rest of Quintero’s insightful post here.
I find it gratifying as a reader, and perhpas you do as well, that a bonafied memoir writer is making a sincere attempt to remember. As remembering is the distinguishing characteristic, the absence of that sincere effort throws the genre into turmoil.
As readers our job is to pay attention and be aware of how much, or how little, the older Narrative “I” is influencing the “Narrated “I.” How does the writer want us to see their younger self? Are they avoiding influencing the thinking of the child self? Or are they brazenly interjecting the the thoughts of the older self? Are they casting their younger self in a “rosy” light? Aestheticizing their past as Vladimir Nabakov does in Speak, Memory?
The recollection of my crib with its lateral nets of fluffy cotton cords, brings back, too, the pleasure of handling a certain beautiful, delightfully solid, garnet-dark crystal egg left over from some unremembered Easter; I used to chew a corner of the bed-sheet until it was thoroughly soaked and then wrap the egg in it tightly, so as to admire and re-lick the warm, ruddy glitter of the snugly enveloped facets that came seeping thought with a miraculous completeness of glow and color. But that was not yet the closes I got to feeding upon beauty. – Vladmir Nabokov.
This excerpt is comprised almost entirely of Narrative “I.” We are given a vision of the Narrated “I” as a toddler sucking and licking a garnet egg but the elegant prose and vocabulary are all Narrative “I” and most definitely the abstract concept of “feeding upon beauty,” incomprehensible at the age of 4, is being imposed upon the Narrated “I.” The older self is, in this instance, layering meaning on top of an experience of the younger self.
Not to mention, that recalling a memory of so young an age is dubious at best, so as a reader I was already suspicious of the author legitimately recalling this moment and thus inclined to attribute this information as originating primarily from the Narrative “I” engaged in highly romanticizing an early memory. So, we have here a prime example of the balancing act we take on as readers, processing and weighing information as we take it in.
How the Narrative “I” portrays their younger self tells us a lot about what kind of person the memoir writer is. Next week, we’ll see how the writer not only shows us the nature of their personality but also what they believe when we head into the final component of memoir identity: Ideological “I.”
What about you? Ever read a memoir and found yourself feeling suspicious of it? Tell me about it here!
