Patricia Hempl, a memoirist and a teacher of memoirists, said in a lecture that Americans trust the first person point of view against all evidence. The evidence suggests lies and self-serving misrepresentations. But we Americans love the rugged individualist and trust the individual's voice.
Hempl said it’s no accident that the great American poem is “Song of Myself” and that a lot of great American novels are faux memoirs, such as Moby-Dick and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
I’m fascinated by Hemps view. I’d like to believe there’s magic in the first person but can’t quite get to belief, even shaky belief.
Maybe it was years in the newspaper business covering Texas politicians, who routinely defied belief. I don’t trust most people who live public lives. I don’t read celebrity memoirs. I try to avoid giving more attention than necessary to the voice of Donald Trump, an unbelievable — and dangerous — man.
On the other hand, I’ve read and reread the letters and autobiographical essays of neglected writers I admire, including Roy Bedichek and Stanley Walker of Texas. I have read more Sir Thomas Browne than Shakespeare.
The attraction is the person, not the point of view. When I get a sense of the person, I tune in with enthusiasm or tune out.
I got interested in Hempl because she wrote and said some interesting things about Montaigne.
Montaigne said he wrote to investigate his weaknesses. He looked at all the things he didn’t know.
He was a retired lawyer. He knew how to put things — including his own beliefs — on trial.
An essay is a kind of trial. It’s the kind of trial that searches for something, rather than trying to prove something.
That kind of thinking is usually done when a person is alone, still and quiet. It’s the kind of thinking done in the first person. Maybe that’s the magic Hempl was talking about.
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