Reflecting upon my career, my memoir writing experience, and what lies before me, I have resolved to dedicate my remaining days to helping others. For example.
If one of my dear bureaucrat friends ever decides to write a satirical memoir about life in government and politics, I am going to corner him at his book launch party and present him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Creative Non-Fiction-like Writing - and then, immediately after that, I will overpower him and force some-kind-of-gold-watch retirement gift into his hands.
This will give him a moment of beauty, joy and happiness -
something exquisite - just before his writing career is put to an
end.
My two-pronged
process would spare my friend all the suffering, pain and ruthless indignity
that flows from reading cruelly contradictory book reviews.
The kind of reviews that either
The kind of reviews that either
1) bemoan any elements of
slapstick and obvious humour while suggesting the work is not very
funny
- or –
- or –
2) methodically analyze the
satire with slow, grotesque praise so monstrous that the embarrassed author
begs to die and former friends turn their heads away.
By
retiring with Lifetime Achievement
laurels, my friend will also be protected from the scourge of caring about
literary award competitions: the no-win affairs that either crush a writer’s
spirit with high-profile defeat or create an ever-widening pool of jealous
rivals ready to attack subsequent works as “not up to usual standards.”
Or maybe I won’t wait for the book launch and just strangle him with
cutting wire when he starts typing.
