The style of story-telling is something that every writer struggles with as they put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. How should my story be told? Who should be the narrative voice? What kind of voice should it have? Will I, as the writer, have a part in my story?

Autobiographies tend to solve part of that problem. The author is often telling their own story to the public and everyone listening is listening to them tell everything that they know and part of what someone else knows. In the end though, they are still the only person speaking. Even if there is someone else speaking, the reader can hardly walk up to them and confirm that the other voices in the story, the other stories in their story are really factually accurate. It would make sense since an over-abundance of narrative voices very often causes confusion in the narrative arc. Everyone has their own version of the story and things don’t always match up so neatly that several different people can each tell their account of what happened and the collective result will make sense.

Holley’s Stories We Tell does exactly that.

Everyone’s story about one person gets told and all of that is put together into one big over-riding narrative arc about a single individual. The way it is executed is so perfect that everything everyone says seems as though it is real, even the re-enacted flashbacks of past times seem as though they were shot in the actual moment that it was happening in and just brought back to light in her documentary. However, it turns out that everyone was staged, a particularly poignant part of the whole documentary being the brief scene where a make-up artist is helping an actor apply his mustache. That one single scene manages to make one question the truth of everything that they just watched. It makes one wonder if any of that was actually genuine or was it all staged and scripted.

In Spiegelman’s Maus, Vladek is telling the story. The narrative voice is partially his and partially Spiegelman’s. However, the two voices are distinct and it’s quite believable. As a reader, I never really found myself doubting the truth of the words that belonged to Vladek. The art that depicted his past was done so in such a way that I knew it wasn’t going to be 100% accurate so I can’t say I ever felt deceived by the story-telling. The narrative made it clear where one voice ended and another began. The images made it clear that while it depicted what the Holocaust would have been like for Vladek, it wasn’t exactly like Vladek’s Holocaust experience. There was an implied message to read what was being shown to me with a grain of salt.

Holley’s documentary belonged to no one. It was a odd mish-mash of everyone’s stories. People who weren’t directly involved, people who were involved by association, people who were associated with the people who were involved by association; everyone had a part in telling the story. Real-life narratives of an event or of an individual have multiple perspectives and by exploring all those different perspectives, the telling of the story becomes much more realistic. However, it’s natural to expect a truth and everything that isn’t a truth is expected to be a lie even though everyone knows that isn’t how reality works.

Who gets to tell a story? Everyone tells their bit of the story and now the telling of the story becomes much more believable becomes everyone’s input is taken into account and inconsistencies in between the stories can be uncovered. At the same times, if the original owner of the story is missing, then no one really gets to judge the validity in any of the versions being told. The problem of the narrator is now brought into light. Everyone gets to tell a story but for people to believe the story is true, only one story can be chosen as the ‘truth’. Everything else is just a spin-off of that ‘truth’.

Entering the realm of life narrative is always tricky.

Is it reliable?

That depends.

Do you put 100% faith into anything that strangers, families or friends tell you?

If the answer is yes, then chances are that reading a life narrative is no different.

It’s often viewed that a life narrative constructed from a tenuous strands of one’s memory and the dubiously trustworthy information garnered from friends, loved ones and acquaintances around them are going to be viewed as facts. Since we can’t outwardly accuse the content as being lies and slander, it’s generally accepted to be facts. Perhaps this is because no one here is really willing to admit that their memory just isn’t as perfect and leak-proof as they’d hope it to be. This thought carries easily into one’s reading of life narratives.

When reading a life narrative, it’s necessary to peel off that band-aid, no matter painful it may be, and reveal the truth for what it is. Memories do not equate facts. They are a perspective upon a fact and that perspective will go through so many stages of evolution that by the time you look back at it again, it may bear only the faintest whisper of resemblance to what it was before. Very much like a Pokemon. However this does not lessen its significance.

Thinking of Maus, Art Spiegelman is recording and depicting the story, partially from his memory, of himself interviewing his father, Vladek, about Vladek’s memories of the Holocaust. Their conversations were recorded upon tapes and just in that, the information is most likely solid but his confrontations with his father, the moment of the interviewing and how it happened for both father and son during those moments of interview are straight from Art’s own memory. Vladek’s memories of the Holocaust could hardly be exaggerated yet it is possible that between the time he experienced those horrors and the time he recounted them to his son, much of his perception about it may have changed. Art’s memory of how the real-world time passed during his interviews with Vladek may also have been changed slightly, a mental image blurred and affected by the information he received, as well as his relationship and feelings towards his father, all of which are not constants. The past, both of his father as well as his interactions with his father, meld with Art’s present of depicting what he has been told into what McGlothlin calls a “temporal blurring”.

This can be observed through Art’s depiction of his father’s memories. In one particular instance, he utilizes photographs, drawn to cascade down the page, completely disregarding the strict lines and boundaries of the panels and gutters he had followed to rigidly before. Photographs are used to remember one’s past, the history of one’s life and their journey down the page during the present moment of the page blurs together the two timelines. Art’s use of panels and gutters also help to break down the barrier between the past and the present. During a snippet of the interview, Art questions his father about a fellow prisoner by the name of Mandelbaum. The panel that depicts Mandelbaum’s fate is set in a traditional panel, blocked off by lines, almost as though the past is being trapped right where it is but this is thwarted by the text above the panel, the hat that breaks free of the panel lines to land partway out of it on the white of the gutter space and the Nazi guard’s speech bubble that is not trapped cleanly within the panel boundary lines and cross over with the present of Vladek telling the story to Art, a panel that is not given any panel lines. It look almost as though neither Art, as the artist nor Vladek as the narrator is able to truly reign in the past from invading into their present.

Yet this instance is only Vladek’s assumption of what might have happened, as he is never quite sure of what truly happened to Mandelbaum. It is part of his memory as well, but this memory is simply Vladek’s perspective upon the fact that is the context of his situation at the time of the Holocaust. In his mind, it was entirely likely that Mandelbaum’s fate was fixed by a German soldier. It might not be true but the fact that it is so much part of his memory that he would be able to remember it shows that it is every bit as significant as though it were true.

The ways in which Art displays his father’s memory through his own memory serves to show the questionable reliability of memory but also illustrates that lack of factual proof to validate every part of one’s memory does not equate a absence of significance and importance.

When talking about life narratives, memoirs or autobiographies, the first thing that pops to mind is a hard-back book being sold for $19.99 at Costco in the book aisle. The smooth sheen of the book sleeve is plastered with a high-quality image that combines soulfulness and depth through a single shot. The subject or writer of the book will be plastered at some highly visible but not too obvious part of the book just so that the reader will know who is behind this literary masterpiece that tells you all about their life. As the reader cracks open the book and flips through, they’re met by pages and pages of detailed information about that subject either from the view of another, or the subject’s own point of view. They’re given every deep and meaningful thought that person has ever had, everything that’s led up to where they are at this very moment and interspersed with small humorous tidbits just to ensure that you keep reading. That is what an autobiographical/memoir/life narrative is.

Having chosen Allison Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half as my paper topic, it became clear that despite her book fitting all of Smith and Watson’s definitions on what a life narrative writing is, Hyperbole and a Half was not acknowledged by readers and reviewers as a life narrative writing simply because it didn’t follow a traditional form of presentation and writing. There isn’t pages and pages of nothing but text. The text are short paragraphs separated by childishly-drawn, brightly-coloured images. There is no deeper meaning that tries to connect with the reader and the humour is just Brosh telling her life as it happens. Memories, thoughts, feelings plastered onto the internet and then plastered onto some very nice paper.

Now comes the problem. Someone who might read an autobiography and be entranced by the subject’s struggles and life details might pick up Hyperbole and a Half and complain about it being too personal, boring and just not funny enough. Both cases describe a person’s life but the reception one gets is vastly different from the other. Hyperbole and a Half is found in the Comic and Humour section of a bookstore and as such is immediately categorized as a light-hearted read that should provide laughs and jokes with none of the pain. Several comments stated that the images looked like cartoons and the childish implications associated with this prevented them from reading it despite the mature themes of depression and the explicit language used.

According to Smith and Watson, a life narrative doesn’t simply focus upon the facts; it looks at memories, thoughts, emotions, the whole deal, because it evolves and changes along with the author, who is also the subject. Hyperbole and a half was first a blog and could very well be considered a piece of life writing that was done on the internet instead of on paper. The categorization of its book form being categorized as a comedy might simply be a result of society’s perception of what counts as ‘deep and mature’ and a worthwhile read versus what is simply good for a laugh.

Thoughts?

Not all of us can travel by bubble. At this current moment in time, this practice has yet to be proven possible, even with the power of science. However, many of us already do travel by bubble in a figurative sense. As Pariser states in his Ted Talks performance, many people are unconsciously travelling within what he calls a “filter bubble”, a carefully edited set of links and information that is geared towards what the individual’s own unique needs and desires. Search engines work with a mechanical precision that simply sweeps aside anything that the viewer would not automatically seek out on their own. Don’t like anything to do with racism? No problem, your search engine will show you a world where racism doesn’t even exist. Radically religious? Well, dear viewer, the glowing world of your computer screen discriminates and denies all religions that are not your own. Social media sites carefully analyze your internet psychology in order to produce the perfect internet experience you, filling your timeline with all your favourite gossip and tidbits.

I can not say that I’ve had a world of experience with Facebook, Twitter, or even Instagram. Composing a message in the 140 characters of a tweet causes more stress than a final exam. Tumblr and Youtube are more down my alley. Hours can be spent scrolling down a Tumblr feed composed of fanart, cats, and food porn and even as I renew that feed for the 10th time, I am travelling through the world in a bubble.

Pariser focuses on the Internet’s role in the growth of a filter bubble when most individual’s seem to be perfectly content within that bubble, and oftentimes aid in its birth. Tumblr is of particular interest. The website provides no annoying ads for the user, aside from the small window at the right-hand side of the feed. All the information that is shown has been hand-picked by the user and is of interest to them. It’s like a buffet of chefs, all specialized in particular kinds of information, and all the user has to is is pick out the chefs that they like and they will be guaranteed an endless flow of happy scrolling. On the odd occasion that they dislike the information, just press the “J” key and skip right past. They don’t even need to see what they don’t want to. I fully admit to skipping a great deal of feed whenever something distressing happens in the world. As far as I’m concerned, I just need to know the basic components of whatever’s happening and move on with my life. Whatever happens just doesn’t grab my attention as much as that post about puppies in the snow.

The very same concept goes for the user’s own page and the information they present to their followers. We crave approval, attention, for people to contact us and be delighted when we reply, almost as though we were internet celebrities. Tumblr users often operate in the darkness of anonymity, waiting for the moment their follower number increases as though they are the leaders of some twisted cult specializing in cat admiration. A tumblr-er’s activity on a particular topic rises and wanes according to just how popular it is with the internet community at the topic’s time of existence. Take cat-shaming for example. Everyone on the internet loves cats. It’s even better when they’re doing things that we humans imagine as being cute as a button. A classic example of a blog that will always be followed because its content is timeless. The blog curries to its followers’ favours by showing them something utterly mindless that they can coo over for a second before forgetting entirely.

Humans are mobile, animate and hopefully not mindless. The algorithmic coding that occurs behind the flashing screen of our computer is relatively simpler. They may be creating a filter bubble but we were the deciding factor in that bubble’s creation.

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