Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock I believe there are as many different truths as there are people to hold them, and likely even more than that, considering how we all grow and change over the years. Mine is in the process of being re-crafted, in fact — the master’s program in…
Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock Fact can exist without human intelligence but truth cannot. — Toni Morrison For a piece of writing to be called a memoir it must include self-reflection. Without it, the recollection of an incident or incidents lacks depth and cannot lead to transformation. Like any good piece…
Ordinarily I write my postings for this blog several weeks, or at least days, in advance. I do this because I suppose I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my attempts at communicating via the written word. I want to read the entire article over before it goes public, making sure I’ve…
On the other hand, heroically doing the right thing is important to Karen Chance’s heroine, Cassandra Palmer. Perhaps because she remembers what it is to be small and helpless before immensely powerful forces, at one point Cassie refuses to leave behind prisoners who are trapped before the lethal onslaught of an upcoming natural disaster. She…
Oddly enough, in Midnight’s Daughter (Karen Chance’s story of a “dhampir” or half-vampire), Dorina Basarab is specifically a killer — a bounty hunter for the vampires, in fact. Yet, despite her clearly acknowledged violent and murderous tendencies, and her extraordinarily rude mouthiness, the author’s light touch has somehow taken this potentially unpleasant character, and made…
I believe it’s reasonable to therefore conclude that personal independence is at the very least a necessary marker on the Heroine’s Journey. Further, the struggle to accomplish financial (or, in some cases, physical) independence can make for a more interesting story — one where we can more easily identify with our heroine. If I’m remembering…
I will make one personal caveat before I start: despite much screeching and near-hysterical insistence that “man” automatically equates to (or conflates with) “human,” the delightfully fascinating Language Log and Grammarphobia have conclusively proven (through both common sense and examination of historical literary precedence) this is not actually the case. That being so, it amuses…
In the end, however, I found myself as turned off by Murdock’s supposed “heroine’s journey” as I was by Campbell’s vision of women. This is due to the shock of my biggest disappointment with the book, and the reason I cannot recommend it: the author’s explication of the “breakthrough” moment where the heroine realizes the…
When I was a child we spent several years in Spain. I remember being stuck one summer in an old country house with family and friends, and at one point finding the small library of children’s books. There were a few in English, which I suppose were imported from England so the former children of…
Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1) Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, Book 2) Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, Book 3) As far as background characters, Crest is a good example of this issue: in the first book he’s a polite, apparently well meaning, pleasant seeming man who is romantically interested in the protagonist. He goes out of…