"How I Met My Husband"

I read the short story "How I Met My Husband" by Alice Laidlaw. It's an endearing story that talks about the reality of love. It's rarely the grandiose, but the close to home that sticks. I found a summary of the story on a website and it follows.

A typical early story, “How I Met My Husband” introduces a young girl's initiation into adulthood, as narrated by her mature self, and exemplifies the double vision frequently found in Munro's work.

When Edie, a naïve farm girl and high-school dropout, is hired as a maid by the new veterinarian, Dr. Peebles, she is awed by his home's modern conveniences: pink bathroom fixtures, an automatic washer, ice cubes. Edie is keenly aware of society's lofty attitude toward hired help and country people, yet she unconsciously exhibits the same prejudice toward shiftless Loretta Bird, an unwelcome neighbor.

The Peebles family lives across the road from the old fairgrounds where one day a small plane lands, sparking all sorts of conjecture. That afternoon the barnstorming pilot Chris Watters, who offers plane rides for a dollar, seeks permission to use the Peebles's pump and instead finds Edie trying on Mrs. Peebles's long dress and jewelry while the family is gone. Edie is immediately smitten.

When Alice, the pilot's fiancé and a former army nurse, arrives unexpectedly, Dr. Peebles follows local custom by inviting her to stay with them. Tension escalates as Alice tries to convince Chris to marry her, but he is clearly reluctant and soon disappears. Viciously turning on Edie, Alice flounces after him. As Edie waits for Chris's promised letter at the mailbox, she meets a young mail carrier who will soon become her husband. Unlike Alice, Edie decides, “If there were women all through life waiting, and women busy and not waiting, I knew which I had to be.”

I'd have to say my favorite part of the story is in the end when she writes "He always tells the children the story of how I went after him by sitting by the mailbox everyday, and naturally I laugh and let him, because I like for people to think what pleases them and makes them happy."

Sometimes the information in an auto-biography doesn't make the people who remember it a certain way happy. How does one write about their life and not alienate the people who remember it a happier or different way. I'm sure there is a balance there, this author just managed to hit it right on.

Mmm Campbell...

This book has a great assortment of pictures, articles and illustrations that give the far fetched tales plausibility.

Definite lines?

Webster dictionary defines autobiography:

au·to·bi·og·ra·phy
Pronunciation: \o-tə-bī-ˈä-grə-fē, -bē-\
Function: noun
Date: 1771
: the biography of a person narrated by himself or herself

Which brings up:

bi·og·ra·phy
Pronunciation: \bī-ˈä-grə-fē also bē-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s):plural bi·og·ra·phies
Etymology: Late Greek biographia, from Greek bi- + -graphia -graphy
Date: 1683
1 : a usually written history of a person's life
2 : biographical writings as a whole
3 : an account of the life of something (as an animal, a coin, or a building)

A Million Little Lies?

Some of you may have heard of the James Frey autobiography A Million Little Pieces. It was supported by Oprah, but then condemned because it was found out to be exaggerated. I read excerpts from this book and found a very interesting writing format. I felt the writing was sincere and it made me wonder, how are autobiographies verified? Isn't personal memory an inconsistent thing? There must be a line somewhere. If it is essentially your writing, and events of your life, how straightforward and honest must it be to qualify as an autobiography vs. a fiction?

Dahl is awesome!

My conjecture is that, although anyone can write auto-biographically, only the ones by the good authors are the really worth reading. Testing this theory I took up Going Solo by Roald Dahl. If anything it proved to me that a good biography has strong voice and that makes any biographical events worth reading.

Here is a passage that I quite enjoyed:

"I smiled weakly at the Major as he went prancing by, but I didn't pull back. I wanted to see him again. There was something rather admirable about the way he was galloping round and round the deck with no clothes on at all, something wonderfully innocent and unembarrassed and cheerful and friendly. And here I was, a bundle of youthful self-consciousness, gaping at him through the porthole and disapproving quite strongly of what he was doing. But I was also envying him. I was actually jealous of his total don't-give a-damn attitude, and I wished like mad that I myself had the guts to go out there and do the same."