week10. I, rigoberta menchú –
I, Rigoberta Menchú was a packed reading. Just from the plot I can understand that its story is incredibly potent and powerful. While the subject matter can (and does) become very heavy, it oddly feels kind-of nostalgic. Maybe that’s because its Rigoberta recounting her life, but theres still a big element of reminiscent warmth. I think its worth mentioning simply because after all she’s gone through, it would be difficult and near impossible to approach her past the way she does.
I listened to this book mostly through an audiobook, since that meant I could get some of it done while I was driving. I don’t think this was the best audiobook out there simply because the person reading it aloud did not have an accent but spoke in Rigoberta’s voice with a very heavy accent. I don’t know for sure if the performance could have just gone with no accent, but I’m pretty sure it would be better. I think the fact of the performed accent of the audiobook lead me to think more about Rigoberta’s voice, more specifically, how Burgos-Debray approached it.
Since before even reading the book, I was a little torn on how to personally approach it. I had heard from different places (Jon, online, my brother who had a copy of the book…etc…) that some events of Rigoberta’s account were not true. It got worse when I was reading (or listening) to Burgos-Debray’s introduction and found out she was an anthropologist and this was an anthropologically-minded project. I’ve studied a bit in anthropology and theres a big controversial topic on over-researched populations, how (white) privilege plays into the portrayal of poc, and the fetishization of poor, ‘international’/’third-world’ in research. Sometimes, I couldn’t help but feel like this was happening in this book. It even came up in Jon’s lecture about the child-likeness or ‘innocence’ of Rigoberta. In my opinion, that viewership of Rigoberta as childlike doesn’t equate to ‘primitiveness’, but if you believe one, it’s much easier to slide into the next.
I think the form or medium of the memoir/testimonio is very interesting, especially given its counter-culture-likeness in regards to the previously popular genre of ‘white man writing about things that are not his’. Other times, I felt like this convoluted process of taped interview -to transcribing -to writing -to translating -to problematic audiobook reading performance was unnecessary. As much as I enjoyed reading this book, I sometimes felt like it would have been better as an interview, where one can clearly see whose voice is whose.
My question for you is: did you think that reading the introduction affected the way you read the rest of the book (i.e. Rigoberta’s voice)?
One reply on “week10. I, rigoberta menchú”
I find it interesting that you listened to this as an audiobook… as you say, it makes for a sort of circular process, from orality to the written word and back to orality, though it’s not exactly the face-to-face orality of a truly oral culture, in which the speaker may acknowledge the listener, and adapt their presentation in a dialogue with the person they are speaking to.
And yes, it’s interesting that Burgos-Debray erased all that dialogic aspect from the printed text, for instance by removing her questions.
But of course, the thing about print, is that it can travel far further and be much more enduring than an oral interview or conversation. That has both advantages and disadvantages, but one advantage is that (as Menchú was very well aware), but allowing her story to be transcribed, she was able to reach a much broader audience, drawing attention to the situation in Guatemala.