My Secret Life
I got my grades today and they were double A's, which made me dance around for a while. But now that I have wearied of dancing, I can actually get back to thinking.
One of my final projects was about a book called My Secret Life - or, rather, the 11 volumes that make up the pornographic rendering of what is said to be one man's sex life. We had a seriously abridged version at only 600 pages long, and I think it made my classmates the most uncomfortable out of all of our materials. It even made me uncomfortable at points, but the work is still interesting in its implications.
I mean, what would you say if you dared to say anything - ANYTHING - you wanted? What would you say if you thought your audience was under control? The author of My Secret Life originally wrote the diary for himself and his own enjoyment. Later, he decided to publish and had an audience in mind, but it wasn't an audience that was going to catch him unawares. Either he would show them the book, or they would read it after his death. He struck out direct place names and changed personal names to protect his family, but for the most part he was able to write down what he wanted without fearing that the wrong people would look over it.
What freedom. What amazing liberty. What sorts of things would you say - what sorts of details would you confess - if you had such freedom? Even if you haven't done much in the flesh, how many things come into your mind that others might recoil from?
LiveJournal is a very public place, and for the most part, people know that. Even these diaries are censored because family or friends or employers might stumble across them, if they don't know about them from the start. I see the editing, I watch myself doing it to my own words, and I can only marvel at what Walter dared to write and claim as his own. I know that for myself, this will always be an imcomplete journal. Complete honesty, unfettered truth, seems too ugly for human relationships to withstand.
One of my final projects was about a book called My Secret Life - or, rather, the 11 volumes that make up the pornographic rendering of what is said to be one man's sex life. We had a seriously abridged version at only 600 pages long, and I think it made my classmates the most uncomfortable out of all of our materials. It even made me uncomfortable at points, but the work is still interesting in its implications.
I mean, what would you say if you dared to say anything - ANYTHING - you wanted? What would you say if you thought your audience was under control? The author of My Secret Life originally wrote the diary for himself and his own enjoyment. Later, he decided to publish and had an audience in mind, but it wasn't an audience that was going to catch him unawares. Either he would show them the book, or they would read it after his death. He struck out direct place names and changed personal names to protect his family, but for the most part he was able to write down what he wanted without fearing that the wrong people would look over it.
What freedom. What amazing liberty. What sorts of things would you say - what sorts of details would you confess - if you had such freedom? Even if you haven't done much in the flesh, how many things come into your mind that others might recoil from?
LiveJournal is a very public place, and for the most part, people know that. Even these diaries are censored because family or friends or employers might stumble across them, if they don't know about them from the start. I see the editing, I watch myself doing it to my own words, and I can only marvel at what Walter dared to write and claim as his own. I know that for myself, this will always be an imcomplete journal. Complete honesty, unfettered truth, seems too ugly for human relationships to withstand.