Notes on a Thought

  Close reading family memoir - the psyche and the stage In this blog series, I want to share a few writings from my time at university. For the module, Telling Lives , we read selected family memoirs and wrote short blogs on our interpretations. Each piece was written along a certain theme, with the aim of highlighting a unique viewing lens for the text. Studying English in Leeds, it was apt that we read Armley’s Alan Bennett. A Life Like Other People’s conveys a difficult upbringing, swaddled in English politeness. Like many playwrights, Bennett’s history informs the drama he writes, but goes beyond just drawing inspiration. In the process of his work, he displaces traumatic events from the psyche on to the stage, and creates a coping mechanism.  Alan Bennett, A Life Like Other People’s (London: Faber, 2009): Alan Bennett describes ‘our lives’ as ‘our drama[s]’ (p. 155). In his memoir, he highlights how his family’s lives inform the dramas he writes. For example, he descri...

During my time at the University of Leeds, I studied a module titled ‘Telling Lives’. Our professor, Dr Jay Prosser, was in the midst of writing his family memoir, as he took us through the various forms of the genre. In the end, we were tasked with writing an extract of our own family memoir. This is mine. Water and Oil ‘When it comes to identity, names matter.’ Afua Hirsch Jeevan came from India, from two villages in the Punjab. From her grandmother being carried into her arranged marriage. Now, she only exists outside of India, with the colonisers. She is a stranger, but home runs, diluted, through her veins. She speaks the languages, Hindi and Punjabi (everyone speaks Hindi because of Bollywood), she understands the culture. She can use magic words to talk to her grandparents. She speaks in tongues. She knows the warmth, the smells, the colours of India. With exotic eyes she can see the faraway land. Georgina was born here, is from here. Her English grandparents met the normal way;...