How much of an autobiography should we believe?

Told in the first person, an autobiography is supposed to be a testimonial of the person writing the autobiography. The first-person voice makes the storytelling more compelling, more believable, more real. The autobiographer, as the storyteller, pulls us, the reader, into the story, making us believe that the reality of the autobiographer is the real world. Almost as if compelling us to recognise and accept the autobiographer’s view of the world as our own reality.

This technique is used by fiction writers too. As readers of fiction, we often escape into the fiction-writer’s world, seamlessly, believing the storytelling, the setting, the characters, etc. to be true… at least, for that moment. It’s like experiencing a reverie. However, we come out of this reverie, if not immediately upon closing the book, at least sometime soon afterward. We realise this is not the real world, but a fictional tale told by a person providing us a few moments’, or a few hours’, or a few days’ entertainment.

Of course, we go through our emotions, feeling happy or sad or angry or despair, in agreement with, or in response to, the writer’s treatment of the story and the experiences of the characters in the story. Later, we applaud or challenge or criticise the fiction-writer’s work, reviewing his/her skills as a storyteller, either in absolute terms or in comparison with other works of fiction. But, all through the experience of reading and discussing the work, never do we forget that it is a work of fiction. Anything can happen here. Reality can take its own shape.

But, an autobiography must speak the truth. People, places, dates, events, sequence of events, conversations cannot change to make the storytelling more entertaining, more compelling. The autobiographer is bound by these elements. However, the autobiographer may play with the style of presenting these elements and these facts, and add to them his own inner experiences and emotions as flavours. This basically means the autobiographer cannot make up or fictionalise the narrative according to his/her whims.

Autobiographers rarely ever write their narratives on the spot. They write later, remembering, introspecting, relying on their memories. This is a tricky affair as memories are known to fail. Of course, autobiographers consult various notes, journals and documents before actually constructing their stories, but can these documents be 100% reliable? The emotions experienced instantly, the nuances of the moment are likely to be missing.

Moreover, autobiographers may be, as all human beings are, prone to talking too much about themselves, exaggerating their life stories, self-justifying their actions, presenting their opinions as facts… turning their autobiographies into works of fiction. If the only reliable source of facts in an autobiography is the autobiographer himself/herself, how can the reader, not having first-hand knowledge, verify all the facts of an autobiography? If all this is true, how much of an autobiography should we really believe?

The taming of the shoes

You could say it was the midnight run. The bus, one of those modern air-conditioned Volvos, took off at 11 o’clock from Calicut and was on its way to Bangalore. Within the hour, most passengers were comfortable in their seats, and asleep. Some were even heard snoring in subdued tones.

Soon, the bus began its laborious climb up the ghats at Waynad, and the hairpin bends had the entire bus – passengers, luggage and all – swaying in their seats and on their racks respectively in slow motion. As if we were all moving in tune with one of those ‘We are the world, we are the children’ sort of songs.

The bus swayed this way and that. We all swayed that way and this. Except for the discomfort of keeping our balance, I’d say it was a rather moving experience.

On one occasion, as I planted my feet on the floor of the bus, I was surprised to find the cold hard floor, and not my soft warm Gaitonde pumps – which I had worn for the trip, but had taken off to get comfortable when the journey began. I looked down and saw nothing. A silent panic hit me. These were my favourite Gaitondes, export quality moccasins, picked up several years ago at a heavy price. And now, they were missing!

I sat up, bent down and twisted myself to look for them in the dark. I found them languishing in the aisle, among a dozen other shoes belonging to several passengers travelling with me. Oh, okay, I understood. The swaying of the bus had dislodged the shoes from their proper places at the feet of their owners. And, since my seat was right up-front, I noticed an assortment of them had quietly gathered there.

I picked up my Gaitondes from the assortment and placed them beneath my seat. However, I couldn’t sleep. Every fifteen minutes or so, I couldn’t resist an inspection. I looked down and, sure enough, I found the shoes had moved again, falling into the aisle. By this time, the conductor of the bus had discovered several shoes scattered near the driver, and he had started pitching them back in, into the aisle.

After several inspections, I was determined to find a solution to this problem. I just had to tame those shoes and not lose them to the mood-swings of the bus. God forbid if I lost them altogether and had to walk around Bangalore bare feet! No, a solution had to be found.

First, I placed the shoes parallel to my feet in the direction the bus was moving. No, it was a failed attempt. Next, I kept them perpendicular to the direction of the bus. They stayed in that position longer but, alas, the right shoe betrayed its loyalty and slipped back in the aisle with the others.

Finally, I found a way to wedge them into a corner, one shoe parallel to the bus and the other, perpendicular. This seemed to work and, several inspections later, I was pleased to find that I had tamed the shoes. The effort had kept me awake for two hours, but in the end, I had managed to put the shoes in their places. Soon, I was asleep with a satisfied smile on my face as the bus raced on.

Mother and daughter

“Ma, you’re so old. I hate you!”

That’s how her daughter greets her, bursting through the front door, dropping her school bag off on one side and stomping off to her room.

Something is wrong. She stares at her daughter’s disappearing back. Then, shutting the front door behind her, she follows her daughter into her room.

She notices her daughter’s small body sunk inside the huge TV couch, remote in hand, but the TV still not on, head hung in shame from whatever has happened to her in school today. She notices the hurt look, tears ready to burst forth in frustration.

“What’s the matter, sweetie? Did someone say something bad?”

No answer.

“Come on, you can tell mummy. It can’t be that bad.”

Still no answer.

She takes a step forward, squeezes in next to her daughter on the couch. She puts an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and cuddles the small warm body, nestling it against her breasts. The girl caves in, surrendering to her mother’s embrace. They sit like that for a moment.

“So… you want to tell me what happened?”

No answer. Then, “All my class-friends made fun of me today. Because you’re so old, Ma. All their mothers are just thirty years old. And you’re forty-five!”

“Oh, come on. Forty-five isn’t all that old.”

“Yes, it is,” tells her daughter. “They said, ‘Hey your mother looks like your grandmother? Why did your father marry your grandmother?’”

“Hmm… And what did you say?”

“What can I say, Ma? You look so old. So much older than the other mothers.”

She hesitates. “That’s because I got married late, sweetie. And I had you much after that. When I was thirty-five.”

“Why, Ma? Why didn’t you marry earlier? I could have been born earlier then. And you could have been young, in your thirties, like all the other mothers.”

True. She thinks for a while, reflecting upon the past twenty or so years of her life: the late marriage, the late pregnancy, the complication, the last-minute C-section, and the beautiful baby.

“Because I wanted to build a career for myself first, dear. I wanted to earn lots of money. Live a good life. And save some of the money for you. So, I had to work hard for many years. Time passed quickly in those days.”

“And then?”

“And then, for a while, I wasn’t sure what I should do with my life. So, I waited.”

“And then?”

“And then?” She smiles and nudges her daughter affectionately.

“And thank God for that! Because, then, I met your Papa and we got married. A few years after that, you came along.”

“Why didn’t you meet Papa sooner?”

“Ah ha! We’ll have to ask Papa that, won’t we? But, that’s what happens sometimes, sweetie. We have to wait for the good things to happen. And see, you came along only after that, no? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I suppose it is.” Then, “I may not have been born if Papa and you hadn’t met, right Ma?”

“That’s right, sweetie. What would I have done if your Papa hadn’t come along? If you hadn’t come along? What would I have done without you?”

“But I’m here now, Ma. So, Papa and you won’t have to worry anymore.”

“Yes, I know, sweetie, I know.”

Her daughter leans in and gives her a warm hug, snuggling further into her. She hugs her daughter, running her fingers through her daughter’s smooth dark hair.

They sit quietly like that, enjoying the moment.

The Outsider

He felt a sudden chill and shuddered involuntarily. He pulled the sheet over his body, upto his shoulders, deciding against getting up from bed to reduce the speed of the fan overhead. It was the damp monsoon weather which played tricks like this. It was not as if he had a fever coming. There was nothing wrong with his health. Probably the only thing God had blessed him with.

He was alone, in bed, re-reading Albert Camus’s ‘The Outsider’, an excellent piece of erudite writing if there was one. The book was now half-closed, a finger marking the place where he had stopped reading momentarily. The chill had unnerved him. He looked up at the wall opposite and sighed, prolonging the moment with a thought from the past.

This was mostly how his life’s been every evening. A nagging post-dinner routine: mindless TV serials, in bed by 11 o’clock, a book for company. He shifted uncomfortably, propping himself up against the pillow behind him, the slim book held firmly in his lap, readying himself to start a conversation with an invisible person at the foot of his bed.

Yes, this was exactly how his life’s been ever since Archana walked away as mysteriously as she had walked into his life one day. It had happened almost in seconds. “We should be on our own for a while,” she had said before leaving. And she was gone. Archana never took long to decide. But this decision, he envisaged, he hoped, had taken her time.

It wasn’t easy leaving someone you love. He had trouble leaving his home when he was younger. He recalled his parents standing at the door, begging him to reconsider, saying they had never wished him harm. But he had walked off anyway; a few thousand rupees in his pocket, a copy of Albert Camus’ ‘The Outsider’ in his bag amongst his clothes, and a one-way air ticket to Mumbai.

Ten years later, in bed with the dog-eared book, his mind was jammed in a tangle of emotions. He recalled the look on his parents’ faces as he left them standing helplessly at the door of their Calcutta home. He recalled his immigrant life in the new city: jobs, friends, adjustments, and a roof over his head. He recalled how his heart exploded, the pain searing through every fibre of his body, when Archana walked out of his suburban flat two years ago.

He felt the slow taste of his tears on the corner of his trembling lips as they trickled down his cheeks to the book in his lap.

Innocent Ian McEwan

Image: Ian McEwan – Geraint Lewis TLS

Re-reading The Innocent by Ian McEwan sent a shiver down my spine, exactly as it had done the first time I read it years ago.

The Innocent is a love affair between a British man, Leonard, a telephone engineer in his mid-twenties who arrives in Berlin during the 1950’s Cold War, young and innocent, and a slightly-older attractive German woman, Maria.

Predictably, the story concerns the loss of innocence, and Leonard begins to change in some frightening ways. He begins to associate himself with the conquering West and Maria with the defeated Germany, treating her with mounting brutality in their lovemaking, until one day he goes too far. Another crisis emerges when they accidentally kill Maria’s ex-husband, a wife-beater, and then dismember the body to hide it.

Frightening? McEwan is unperturbed, going headlong with macabre plots such as this one in a series of novels, and winning much acclaim in the process.

According to Christian Perring, Ph D, who reviewed fiction in connection with metapsychology, McEwan’s stories have often brought out the sinister side of human nature. His early collections of short stories and novels took pleasure in their own perversity, flirting with taboo subjects while maintaining an emotional distance from their characters – largely through poetic use of language.

It seems McEwan is drawn to the theme of youthful sexuality, of the innocent and the not-so-innocent, as they recur in his novels from time to time. His early works have an adolescent quality to them, skilfully styled, yet refusing to engage in profound analysis of the lives he describes.

Critics have tried to trace elements of McEwan’s earlier fiction to his past. Reportedly, while studying English at the University of Sussex, McEwan was deeply disturbed after finding out that his father would get drunk and beat his wife, Rose.

McEwan, who has won literary awards such as the Booker and the Whitbread, among others, was once quoted in a review of Atonement (a later book) by Thomas Wagner: “I have a great sense of the randomness of life… Some people want to make me out to be a sort of gothic writer about horrors that intrude. I’m saying I’m reflecting what happens when peoples’ lives are utterly transformed or destroyed by sudden events.”

When asked by David Wiegand in a 2002 interview, “What about the secrets, the shocks in your writing? Are they planned?” McEwan apparently replied: “Ideally, I hope to surprise myself. For me writing a novel is like beginning an investigation, and you don’t quite know where that investigation will take you. I might have a clear idea of where I might end up even, but along the way, I hope to be surprised.”

Whirlpool

Images floating in slow motion.
Giant Dali-like black and white
figures swirling in space, melting
syrup-like, free-falling drop by
drop into tiny white splashes,
dissolving into pools of words,
scribbled, scratched, sketched,
circled, underlined.

Scattered pages, coffee stains,
spilled ashtrays and a nicotine
headache later, images begin to
snake out of nowhere. Circling
round and round, twisting and
turning, sucking me in, closer
and closer, into a breathless
bottomless whirlpool.