Published by
Thorndike Press, 2016
The
autobiography or, as it is sometimes called the memoir, is a category of
writing I usually approach with some caution.
I have found it to be overall the least dependable of source information
pertaining to its subject. Of necessity
we get a biased view of developments. I
have been disappointed several times by the author being too close to the
subject or by his or her interest in clearing the name, justifying actions once
taken that have become suspect on the part of the public being served. One can often sense that these writers are
only telling us what they want us to know.
They do not always “come clean”; issues of a questionable ethical or
moral character get skirted. Sometimes
it is not difficult at all to sense when truth is being compromised.
But, not
wishing to be misunderstood, let me say that I have read some that were quite
convincing and some even inspiring. And
there are some that seem to transcend the subject and open a vast territory for
inquiry and reflection. Such a one is this powerful tome by an award-winning
author named Glennon Doyle Melton. It is the account of a married
woman’s struggle to bring order out of the emotional chaos caused by her
husband Craig’s betrayal.
There are
roughly four types of autobiography. One
is what I call the straight chronology comprehensive. This is the kind in which the author presumes
to “tell all”, to cover the whole story of her or his existence, usually
composed sometime very late in the person’s life. The chapters follow in chronological order;
the book is usually quite long.
We have as well
the straight chronology limited. The
autobiographer is not trying to cover the whole career, to be exhaustive. Only events within a restricted period of
time are shared, but they are significant enough that they give a well-rounded
picture of the person, for good or ill or suspect.
Then there are
memoirs that are revealing about the one writing, but also revolve around
someone else in the experience of the author, some person or group of
people. “Tuesdays with Morrie”, which I
have reviewed as a movie, having also read the book, is a splendid
example. Or those who spend months
embedded with a unit of the military, those researching the lives of people
struggling with disease or examining life in a slum or the state of things in
nursing homes often come forth with what proves to be eye-opening revelations
not just about the area of inquiry but about themselves. We share the reporter’s experience of a thing and
when we finish we feel as if we have stored away a lot about the reporter.
And lastly
there is the autobiography that is structured more like a work of fiction or a
novel. The story is told in the first
person, but it is also depicted in the present tense. Each happening is portrayed as if it is taking
place while you read. And that is what
we have in “The Love Warrior”. Take
the opening as an example. The author is getting married:
“It’s almost
time. My father and I stand at the edge
of a long white carpet, laid just this morning over the freshly cut grass.
Craig’s childhood backyard is transformed by the start of fall and the promise
this day holds. My shoulders are bare
and I feel a chill, so I lift my face toward the sun. I squint and the sun, leaves and sky melt
together into a kaleidoscope of blue, green and orange. The leaves, my soon-to-be husband, our
families sitting upright in their dressiest clothes, and I – we are all turning
into something else.”
And on and on
she goes for THE ENTIRE BOOK, never once jumping into a past tense. If you did not know anything about the book
you are reading, just hearing this very short excerpt, you would think you are
starting in on a crisp novel or short story.
All at once we are far removed from an academic format. She is not straining to remember her wedding
day, not fishing for memories, not setting down any documented account of the
place and time. She is reliving it by
making it immediate, irresistible, and just as vivid and authentic. This opening passage appeals to the senses,
to esthetics, with emotional range one is not likely to find in an ordinary
recount. I suppose others have been composed in this fashion, but never
was there one as rich as this beauty.
I must confess
that it is a temptation for me to not write a review; I would love, if it were
possible, to just quote you the entire text.
Each and every tidbit of it I find just as captivating. It would lend itself to monologues, to dramatic
recitations. I cannot think of a single written confessional coming from someone
wrestling with addiction that could match the thoroughness and the vividness in
which Glennon lays it out – the steps taken toward her self-abuse in her
pre-marriage life – the
rationalizations, the impulses that drive someone with so much self-doubt to
take the plunges, one after another – bulimia, drink, drug use. She demonstrates how one can grow up with
many friends and acquaintances, including a very loving sister and two
reasonably faithful and caring parents but still feel not at home in her own
body and experience intense loneliness, the kind that makes all incidents seem
strange and that makes her surroundings seem unreal.
She never takes
the easy way out by shifting into overview or simple summary. Everything that happens, even her wedding
night and the daily life of her marriage, is
portrayed in minute detail, and yet it never becomes tedious. There is a well sustained sense of what
happens next. It is as if she is
actually reliving things, internally as well as externally, and giving personal report of what takes place as it
transpires.
She comes to
realize that she has had a representative of herself, a false self that hides
her real one. How she discovers her real
honest self is through communication on Facebook, following the marital crisis.
Not knowing who if anyone is reading, she feels a sense of liberation
from having to look someone else in the face.
“That’s not my representative.
That’s the real me. I want to
learn more about me, so I keep writing.
My fingers are flying now, pounding against the keyboard like they’ve
been waiting a lifetime to be freed.
They type juicy, dangerous, desperate sentences about marriage and
motherhood and sex and life – it all pours out fast and furious, like the real
me is gasping for air, like she’s trying to get it all out at once in case
she’s never allowed to surface again.”
Her
realization, after discovering her husband’s years-long infidelity and his addiction to pornography, has to do with what women have come to mean for many men. She sees that she has been part of “a system that agrees that women are
for being implanted and teased and painted and then arranged and dominated and
filmed and sold and laughed at. . .sex is something men do to women.”
But
this book is not Melton’s debut by any means.
She came to be a celebrated author back in 2014 with the publication of
“Carry On, Warrior”, another book full of exciting anecdotes about her private
life. In that work also she covers a lot
of ground, though she is more conventional in format and all that she depicts
predates “The Love Warrior”. In that
work she does not tell a continuing story.
Each chapter is of the nature of a short essay on a given topic that
relates to her life with her family and her marriage. I have read both books, and for pure
spiritual nurture I am ever so fond of both.
But I find “The Love Warrior” much more of a challenge and full of
sustained energy. It has a tension that
lays claim to points and predicaments in my own experience. It is dramatically focused. A quite forceful and gripping memoir!
“Carry
On, Warrior” is like a Valentine with many streamers attached, very
charming. “The Love Warrior” is more
explosive, more concerned with a long but successful recovery from an initial
shock. There is genuine warfare in it,
inside Glennon’s body and mind and soul.
She digs deeper into herself.
Have
any of us over fifty ever taken stock and noticed that the process of
self-discovery begun at an early age is still going on? Hear it in her own words:
“I’d
looked around and decided that adulthood meant taking on roles. Adults became, became. . . I became a wife and then a mother and a
church lady and a career woman. As I
took on these roles, I kept waiting for that day when I could stop acting like
a grownup because I’d finally be one.
But that day never came. My roles hung on the outside of me like
costumes. . .I wake up each morning paralyzed, disoriented, stripped, naked,
exposed. Wondering, Who am I? Who was I
before I started becoming other things?
What is true about me that can’t be taken away?” At this point she is still wrestling with the
question of what to do about Craig in the wake of what she has learned about
him. “Who is this woman who will or will
not step back inside this family. That is the question that needs to be
answered before I make this decision.”
For
me, the most trenchant passage of the writing has to with the well-meant but
frail attempts that friends of hers make to comfort her in the wake of the
shattering discovery about Craig. The
one that really sets her off is the question “What happened?”
“I want to pick up a crystal
vase and smash it into the ground.
That’s what happened, I’d say. The few times I try to tell the
shattering as a story, I regret it.
Spoken words make what happened to us too tidy, too palatable, too
ordinary. I can’t describe the ferocity
of the fear and rage inside me with words tame enough for the light of
day. When I finish the telling, I want
people to be as shocked and confused as I am.
I want thunder to roll and mouths to drop open. But most often the listener makes the pain
harder for me by trying to make it easier for her [the listener]”.
She goes on for several pages
depicting six different types of Job’s comforters. There is the Shover, someone who insists that
there is nothing unusual about her predicament, the
everything-happens-for-a-reason-this-will-be-a-blessing-you’ll-see type,
someone who shoves her toward the door of hope impatiently. “But I don’t want to be shoved. I want to turn to that door in my own
time.”
She
leaves no doubt that she is a true Christian believer. I especially like the way she relates her
faith to her three children. A woman
approaches her in the church hallway and starts to warn her about the dangers
of divorce. Divorce is not God’s plan
for her family. God’s preference is the
nuclear family and if she steps outside his umbrella of safety, he doesn’t
promise to protect her. “God gave you to
Craig as his helper. . .Your duty is to help him through this time.” In other words, God values her marriage more
than her soul, her safety, her freedom, or her self-respect; her marriage,
however bad, is the cross upon which she should hang herself. Then she thinks about the kids and realizes
that they do not want her to become a martyr, but to show them how “a woman
deals honestly with an imperfect life” and that God loves them more than the
tenets of any institution of religion.
She
declares that “making decisions is never about doing the right thing or the
wrong thing. It’s about doing the
precise thing, and the precise thing is always incredibly personal and often
makes no sense to anyone else.” What a
shrewd insight! What shrewd piece of
writing this book is! I highly recommend
it.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To know
about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
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