The writer gives the competition the evil eye

[rachelmanija]

I had thought I was the first ashram child to write a memoir, but actually a guy named Tim Guest who grew up on the repulsive (profiteering, sexual abuse, orgies, rape, biological terrorism-- seriously) Rajneesh ashram got in ahead of me. His book came out in England last year and will be published in the US in February 2005. (Mine is due September 2005.) I'd say that the big difference is that mine is primarily a black comedy and his is primarily a psychological/sociological report. All the same, I totally expect to get this kind of review:

"I felt alone, different from all my friends. They all had great careers. And then I realised I could trade on my childhood. Fever Pitch meets Bhagwan. What more could a publisher want? My very own autobiography before the age of 30. I was going to be the talk of Radio 4."

http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedread/story/0,6550,1131392,00.html

I also expect to get this sort of notice, from "Sannyas News" (ie, "The Ashram Post"):

"There are also subtle insults : sannyasins doing dynamic "flap" their arms. After the Ranch, "sannyasins had begun manufacturing the drug ecstasy"; in reality a very small number did this, and a great many more went back to the often professional lives they had before living in the organised communes. .Throughout the book he implies that sannyas ended in 1985 when the orange coloured clothes were dropped. For some this is when it began!"

http://www.sannyasnews.com/Articles/Life%20in%20Orange%20review.html

My take, from when I first read it:

"Although the sentences are well-written, the sensibility is thoughtful, and there are some moments of humor and insight, the book as a whole was in the last category I would have expected: worthy but dull. Although the goings-on were hair-raising, more was told than shown and it spent too much time as a history of Rajneesh, but retold without enough wit and flair to lift it above simple history. The author's personal recollections were recalled vividly but the telling was flat. I'm not sure what exactly went wrong, but I suspect not enough drafts. At one point my memoir had the same problems."

Comments

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

You know I was thinking abt that when mrissa and I were commenting recently abt Judith Merrill's posthumously published autobiography -- the problem of flatness. I think part of it is the difference between looking back over your life from the point where you are now, which means everything is sort of distanced and flat, and being able to more or less relive those moments you're writing abt from the perspective you had then, which often can be a lot more painful than just sort of remembering it. If that makes sense. Anyhow, I had that particular problem when working on my own v unfinished memoir (nothing to do with ashrams! really!) and trying to recollect childhood depressions, so I thought I'd mention it.

I really am looking forward to your book. It might be a bit far afield, but did you ever see a doc -- locally produced here in Seattle -- called "Faith & Fear," (http://www.kcts.org/productions/krishna/about/index.asp) abt the gurukula kids? It was really well-done (I taped it) and it's always been sort of an intriguing concept for me, the effect for a certain generation of our parents' counterculture lives on our childhoods. (My parents weren't particularly religious, unless you count Christian Science and its various branches, but were strenuously bohemian, which led to Interesting situations.) Not that it's like that MST3K "I Accuse My Parents!" short, but I think it's a genre that's growing and growing as we grow up and older and look back.

Just rambling, at this point -- apologies for not having much of a point.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The first draft was flat, I think, not so much because it was painful but because I was being overly meticulous about things like not recreating dialogue from my memory of how conversations more-or-less went, and so too much was told rather than shown. Although parts certainly were painful to write, and a couple chapters were written with my metaphorical hands over my eyes. There's a couple places where I actually wrote it without looking at the screen, only the keyboard, although they did have to be re-read and revised along with the rest.

Now most of it is like the way people say they experience pain under morphine-- they can still feel it, but it doesn't hurt. I know I had a lousy childhood where horrible things happened, but it doesn't bother me much any more.

Being depressed as an adult, now, is something I do try not to remember in detail. That was coming from inside me, rather as a result of people who are no longer around doing things they no longer have the power to do to me in a place where I no longer live. I know none of the childhood stuff can ever happen again. It's just memory. But if I contemplate my depressed state of mind too long or too hard or too closely, after a while it starts seeming so damn logical. So I do try not to go there.

Say, do you have taping capabilities? If you do, I'll trade you for the doc--books or video or a signed copy of my memoir, whatever you like.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I was being overly meticulous about things like not recreating dialogue from my memory of how conversations more-or-less went

Heh. That reminds me of a great article on memoirs I read where Susannah Kaysen, of "Interrupted" fame, said "People ask me how I remembered all that dialogue from twenty years ago, and I said, I made it all up! I mean, it was there, and it wasn't fake, but it's not the same words." Something like that.

too much was told rather than shown

That's probably it right there, really.

Now most of it is like the way people say they experience pain under morphine-- they can still feel it, but it doesn't hurt. I know I had a lousy childhood where horrible things happened, but it doesn't bother me much any more.

I have a friend who wrote a memoir about terrible events in his life (divorce, circle of friends breaking up, second wife's death) and he felt so much BETTER after writing it, he said it was amazing -- Ted Hughes I think said something similar after writing Birthday Letters, that the aftereffect of writing it felt so good it was like an exorcism.

Ha, feeling the pain but it not hurting sorta sounds like the way I describe panic attacks on Zoloft -- or, like the Lone Gunman type bookstore owner says in Angel's "Magic Bullet" ep, "Oh, I know they're still watching me, I just don't care!" v odd feeling, really. I'm not quite sure whether it is actually healthy or not.

I know none of the childhood stuff can ever happen again. It's just memory. But if I contemplate my depressed state of mind too long or too hard or too closely, after a while it starts seeming so damn logical. So I do try not to go there.

That's a good point....interesting, even though I know the childhood stuff can't happen again there were times as a young adult I was absolutely overwhelmed by the memories -- it was like some kind of awful tsunami. The older and older I get and the further I see my childhood recede in the rearview mirror, the happier I get.

Say, do you have taping capabilities? If you do, I'll trade you for the doc--books or video or a signed copy of my memoir, whatever you like.

Arrgh, I just have one VCR and the tape, so I can't dub it -- if I could I'd have it in a flash off to you (signed memoir, hot damn! but no obligations). Rats. Maybe if we got a DVD player and hooked it up to the VCR I could burn it to a disc....