Zinsser on ‘whiny’ memoirs

If you’re (like me) a fan of William Zinsser’s wonderful books about writing, most notably the classic On Writing Well, you might want to check out his blog for The American Scholar. The magazine describes “Zinsser on Friday” as “a weekly posting about writing, the arts, and popular culture … based on a favorite quotation or comment.”

Want a little of its flavor? Here are a couple Zinsser excerpts of particular interest to writers:

• “Whining crept into the American memoir in the mid-1990s. Until then the world of letters adhered to an agreed-upon code of civility, drawing a veil over emotions and events too private or shameful to reveal. Then talk shows were born and shame went out to the window. Memoirists sprouted from the American soil like dandelions. Using memoir as therapy, they bashed their parents and brothers and sisters and relatives and teachers and coaches and everyone else who ever misunderstood them–a new class of self-appointed victims. Today nobody remembers those books; readers won’t put up with whining. But V. S. Pritchett survived his boyhood to become one of the master writers of the 20th century, his stories and essays a reservoir of wisdom and compassion.”

• “I often think I’m the only teacher who talks about enjoyment as a crucial ingredient in writing. My students seem puzzled that I keep coming back to the subject, that I find so much amusement in what I see and hear and read every day. Life is serious! Writing is serious! Most writers take the act of writing with grim solemnity, fearful that they won’t be worthy of the gods of literature scowling down from Mount Parnassus. Or is it that they take themselves so seriously?”

 Feel like more? Find the Zinsser blog at www.theamericanscholar.org/zinsser.

 -- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Comments

Trevendor wrote re: Zinsser on ‘whiny’ memoirs on Sat, Jul 3 2010 4:04 AM I have a rather extensive personal library and two shelves of one large bookcase are filled with books aimed at writers. They range from such essentials as that marvel of clarity, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, through Jacques Barzun's dense and diffcult, Simple and Direct (it is neither), all the way to Garner's latest six pound tome on contemporary usage. Once a young writer noted that I was the only person he had ever met who read style guides for pleasure. I hit him with Zinsser's book. Not long after that he got his first national byline. You have done your readers a great service in pointing us to another source of original work by one of the great instructors of the craft. Billy Walsh

Lala'sLilyRose wrote re: Zinsser on ‘whiny’ memoirs on Tue, Jul 13 2010 11:45 AM Amen.