Biographies seem like a hole in a wall, or a hole in a door from which we sneak into another life, and it is an opportunity to wear the mantle of another self and live its experiences.
In his 1980 book Autobiography: Theoretical and Critical Essays, James Olney reveals an aspect of the attractiveness of autobiographical books, speaking of the inexhaustible fascination with the self, its depth and its endless mysteries.
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Writing oneself..writing life
Autobiography is a term derived from three Greek words: “auto” meaning self, “bio” meaning life, and finally “graphy” meaning writing.
We cannot determine the true beginning of the emergence of writing about the self, as it appeared in the desire of the ancient man to record what happens to him on the walls of caves, a desire that prompted him to convert drawings and inscriptions into letters of written languages, as if telling was a primary instinct and a desire that appeared from time immemorial.
We can find these tales in the papyri of the pharaohs, on the walls of their temples, in ancient Greek documents, and in every monument that celebrates the story of the individual man.
Critics tend to regard Saint Augustine's Confessions as the first example of autobiographical writing as an independent literary genre
Despite these early attempts, critics often tend to consider Saint Augustine’s Confessions the first models of autobiographical writing as an independent literary genre, as it showed a clear development in personal writing influenced by the traditions of confession in Christianity, to become, despite its religious character, the most important complete autobiography produced in the ages Central.
However, the term "autobiography" itself did not appear until the late eighteenth century when Robert Southey coined it in 1809. (2)
Robert Southey
Although the memoirs share many features with the autobiography, they differ with them primarily in the writer’s position in the narration, as they do not focus on an individual or on his whole life, but on a specific aspect of it, as you do, for example, war memoirs, or travel notes , prison notes, or family diaries.
While the autobiography follows a temporal path that usually begins with birth and continues until a specific moment, the memoirs cut out a specific segment of life, transforming the narration center from the writer to the historical moment or the societal phenomenon he deals with, and placing personal experience in a social framework with which the boundaries between the subjective experience of the individual and his experience as Part of a societal, historical, or other experience. In spite of that difference, sometimes it is confused for some readers between the autobiography and memoirs. (4)
There is a similar third literary color, letters and diaries, and it acquires its characteristics from the distinction of the reader to whom these letters are usually directed.
Letters are written with the intent of addressing a particular person, and are usually published later than they were written, and may be subject to multiple processes of deletion and editing, with the aim of focusing on certain aspects of the writer's life.
As for the diaries, they are distinguished by being written without taking the reader into account, as a form of self-reflection, without the intention of publishing, as they are usually published at a later stage after the death of their writer.
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Given that the subject is the focus here, the writer is often unable to describe the events objectively.
As a result, the issue of publishing diaries and letters has always been subject to questions about its morality, but despite the controversy, we cannot disagree that this type of writing helps us understand the works of its owner, contributes to the interpretation of many of his positions, and certainly satisfies our inexhaustible instinct to eavesdrop on others. .
autofiction
Given that the subject is the subject of interest here, the writer is often unable to describe the events objectively, which makes the most accurate autobiographies bear imaginary elements.
Perhaps this absence of boundaries between the real and the imaginary is what led to the establishment of a sub-genre within the types of biography, which is the autobiographical novels, in which the mixture of the characteristics of the novel and the biography clearly appears, and its examples in Arabic literature are “The Bare Bread” by Moroccan writer Mohamed Choukri, and the “Al-Wasiya” trilogy. Written by Khalil Hassan Khalil.
This type of literature is commonly known as autofiction, a term first coined by French author Serge Dubrovsky, who wrote primarily about the Holocaust and whose novels are loosely based on his life.
(6) While the autobiographical writer tries to portray his real life, the writer of the autobiographical novel or self-fiction relies on real experiences, but without being expected to investigate historical accuracy, as he employs fiction in a way that makes his work more than just a real biography.
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life writing
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the term life writing has become used to refer to recording memories or experiences, to include under its umbrella biography, altruistic biography, diaries, diaries, letters and testimonies, and even extended to include the study of life beyond the focus on verbal texts to other non-written media such as films and novels. comic and self-portraits, and more recently it has expanded to include digital forms such as blogging and social media posts.
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“I was not a fortunate boy then, but the distance is like fine blacksmiths, made of iron, as insignificant as the moon.”
(Mahmoud Darwish)
When we read autobiographical books, it seems as if we stick our faces to a glass window that allows us to contemplate what is behind it from the closest possible distance, but the truth is that this glass barrier does not enable us to know the extent of the distance that separates us from the life we are stalking on, and even between the writer himself and what he writes, which He puts us in that cloudy distance between truth and truth, the distance that is made of insignificant iron a moon, as the poet Mahmoud Darwish says.
This does not mean that there is an intent to lie or politeness (although sometimes there is, of course), but the most honest and accurate autobiographical books cannot tell us the truth.
In their book, The Voice Within, Roger Porter and H.
R.
Wolff argued that truth is a very subjective matter, and no biographer can fully represent what happened in the past, which is partly due to the inability of language to fully express memories and emotions and thus convey them fully and faithfully.
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A biographer is free to reshape his life in whatever image he chooses.
It can be imagined what this allows him to choose what he wants to mention or delete, he can choose the events that culminate on the stage, highlighting them, and those that he hides under the rubble of his memory, so that he himself is not able to see them.
The writer may choose to highlight events that really shaped him, or writing as a space to exonerate himself or the world, or as a anointing for the sins of the soul.
Whatever he chooses gets to decide what matters and what doesn't.
Because the autobiography is a public disclosure of the self, self-accounting and justification always come an integral part of autobiographical writings, especially with the time distance between the writer and the events that actually separates his present self from his past self, and allows him to create an opportunity to deal with the self as a distant other. In time, his actions can be read from his current perspective, held accountable or justified, and his respect restored.
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Narration and selection distance
In the case of autobiography, the space between the present and the memories gives us an opportunity to reshape and retell the memory.
“It could be said that each of us builds and lives a narrative, and this narrative is us and our identities.”
(Oliver Sacks)
The famous British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks made this observation based on the experience of one of his patients with brain damage that makes him unable to remember his identity for more than a minute or two, prompting this patient to spend his waking hours in a frantic effort to try to build new identities to replace the old ones he forgets. Once created, which is why Sachs put forward this radical equivalence between self and identity.
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In the case of autobiography, the space between the present and the memories gives us an opportunity to reshape and retell the memory. What we refer to with confidence as our memories, from moments or scenes that we consider fixed in our memory that chose to save those memories rather than others from the clutches of oblivion, is in fact a form of narration and retelling again and again in the mind, which exposes it to change with the repetition of the narration and re-narration Arrange scene elements. In fact, we draw memories that correspond to what we want to believe, not to the truth.
The writer chooses only what he wants you to see, he writes consciously of your presence, with your frantic curiosity to eavesdrop on him, in fact, he is the one who drills this hole in the wall of his life, and allows you to pretend to eavesdrop while he controls how wide the hole is, and the amount and range of light shining.
You'll never know from Somerset Maugham's "The Summing Up" about his true sexual orientation, as it appears that Maugham wrote his book with the same cautious approach with which he lived his life.
Thus, the most honest writers can simply hide from you what they want to hide.
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Why then do we read more autobiographical books?
A biography can be considered complete if it includes about six or seven selves, while a single person can have about a thousand selves.
(Virginia Woolf)
Reading in general has many psychological and emotional benefits. It is a very effective way to keep our mind active, improve empathy and creativity, and enhance the neural connection of the brain.
But when it comes to reading autobiographical books, this space expands to include many other goals.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
In about 1675, Isaac Newton wrote in a letter to the polymath Robert Hooke: "If I have seen more, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
The phrase itself appeared for the first time in the early twelfth century, specifically in 1159, when John Salisbury recorded it in the words of the philosopher Bernard of Chartres, saying: “Bernard of Chartres used to say that we [modern people] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [ the ancients], and consequently we are able to see more. This is not at all because of our acuity or the stature of our bodies, but because we are carried high and lifted up by the immensity of giants."
This is what biographers give us, then, this deep insight into the lives of these people, how they were, what they faced, and how the world responded to them.
Life experience is a hard teacher, giving you the test first, with all the pain you can go through before you can learn the lesson from it.
Whereas, a resume allows you to reverse the chronology and absorb the lessons first without going through the pain.
Biographies of Vic also raise questions about the author's choices, why did he choose to reveal and hide other things?
If you are really interested, you may not just read his biography, and you may need to refer to other sources, such as diaries, personal letters and testimonies of others mentioned in his biography, and of course to historical sources and perhaps also to films and documentaries.
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Practice and develop feelings of empathy and emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions, as well as the emotions of others.
Biographical reading helps us practice and develop emotional intelligence, and through this sharpening and motivation we are able to adjust our feelings to adapt to different environments, which helps us move forward in the world and achieve our goals.
This emotional intelligence and empathy also enables us to understand the feelings of others and to digest their experiences and the hardships and tribulations they have gone through.
Understand the cyclical nature of time
We go our lives in a straight line, and we can't go back in time, but historical events seem to repeat in circles.
In his book The Life of the Mind, the philosopher George Santayana said: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We run the risk of repeating mistakes made by others before us if we did not know them before.
Here, the autobiography, at its core, is like the tales we listened to in our childhood, training in difficult situations in a safe way from dangers.
Promote self-discovery and insight
The process of writing an autobiography and telling a life story entails a self-exploration and re-reading.
And by reading it, it seems as if we are also reconstructing our story in parallel, trying to explore its different aspects in a real learning process that is different from what happens when reading learning and self-development books that give us packaged advice.
It will make it easier for us to see our identity when reading the identities of others.
Looking at the world from new angles
Diversity of ideas and experiences help us break out of our intellectual comfort zones, explore new areas, and develop our ability to innovate.
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Learn about different cultures
Reading the autobiography helps us learn about different cultures, different times, with all the traditions, ideas and social conditions related to them, through the eyes of a participant in the events instead of reading them on the pages of rigid history books.
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Sources:
1- Autobiography in the Aftermath of Romanticism
2- The Genre of Autobiography: Definition and Characteristics
3-Trends in Autobiography Theory and Writing: Hala Kamal Cairo University, Egypt
4- Autobiography/Biography/Memoirs
5-Trends in Autobiography Theory and Writing: Hala Kamal Cairo University, Egypt
6-Hughes, Alex.
“Recycling and Repetition in Recent French 'Autoficion”
7-The Genre of Autobiography: Definition and Characteristics
10-Life Writing—Genre, Practice, Environment
11-The Genre of Autobiography: Definition and Characteristics
12- Previous source
13- What Are We Reading When We Read Autobiography
14-?WHY DO WE READ BIOGRAPHIES
15-What to Look for When You Read a Biography
16-Seven Good Reasons to Read Biographies and Autobiographie
17- Psychological Benefits of Reading Biographies