Self-Narrative

I did not think that my life would make a good novel before reading Panorama City, I'm not sure that I would read my novel, but now I think it could be made interesting. I really enjoyed how the narrator skipped around in time given the circumstances of the current time in order to tell his life story. His voice also created an atmosphere of realism that kept me engaged as the reader; the narrator's voice was so unique that I did not feel like I was in an ordinary novel or dealing with someone who thinks that their life is normal. On the point of normal, I felt like the narrator's life walked the fine line between being believable and being purely fiction. There are certainly strange things at work here, like a boy being raised to ride around town looking for work or burying his father without calling the police, but I think that the uniqueness of it is that these things could happen. They may have happened somewhere at sometime, my words. For me these moments create a tension that I enjoy because I was waiting for things to happen in the story that were even more strange to me than what I had already read.

I suppose it's pandering to keep sucking up to the book, but I do think that this novel changed how I would view my own life as a book. I've certainly tried to write about myself in my own work, but it always ends up with magic, dragons, or robots (not that there is anything wrong with that). I think that there is a message to writing a self-narrative by skipping around in time and creating an audience within the story. What the author is doing is breaking up the linear fashion of a life. We exist in a linear fashion, living day by day, but mentally we live in past, present, and future. Do you remember last Wednesday, or this day one year ago, or two? You probably don't remember all three (but if you do, you should really be writing a novel about yourself) because they were not all significant days. Additionally, I can tell you that my mind has already traveled to ex-girlfriends, childhood memories, soccer games in my senior year, night up late drinking, what I'll say to my future children, who I'll marry someday. None of these things are linear, some have happened before today, some after, and some hopefully will happen today. My point is that the mind transcends both time and space, so to contain yourself in one place, at one time, in a story takes away from its verisimilitude, Ammi's word. My story would track important points and align them in such a way that they give significance. With that being said, I just realized that the novel is told on voice recorders in one sitting, so it contains ideas but does not necessarily place you in the mind of the narrator, but I think that the same ideas apply.

Lastly (thanks for reading for this long), I think that we should not be afraid to write about ourselves because I think that these self-narratives can help us learn about our own lives. It's easy to say that writing about yourself is self-centered, conceited, or narcissistic (mine would be the latter), but I don't think we should be afraid. I would rather learn about myself than let an opportunity go by. I think it would be more fun to read, however, if someone else write it, but now I really am being narcissistic.