DIKKON EBERHART
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Your Reading Suggestions

10/7/2017

10 Comments

 
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Dikkon Eberhart


I write memoirs in order to bring religious seekers closer to God and to gratify believers who wish to be re-enthused. 

Most readers of my recent memoir are Christians, but some are not.  The same applies to readers of my blog posts.  Some are; some are not. 

My point is that, irrespective of the religious stance of readers, I write from the perspective of a believing Christian who happens to be a Lutheran by denomination. 
 


A memoir is a variety of writing that differs from, but is a sub-category under, autobiography. At a higher level, each is non-fiction.


Autobiography is an organized, factual, narrative recounting of the events that comprise the writer’s life, usually presented in order as they occurred.  On the other hand, while a memoir also draws from the writer’s life, the word memoir has been traced back to a Persian term for “that about which we ponder.”

That Persian word is mermer. 

The person who writes a memoir does relate factual events, indeed, but he or she devotes attention not so much to the events themselves or to the order in which they occurred, but to the ponderings which arise from the events. 

The ponderings may be happy or sad. The pondering reveal the book’s theme. 

The reader of memoirs experiences something that is more subtle and more nuanced than the reader of autobiography.  Memoirs are closer to poetry than they are to general non-fiction.  The reader of a memoir is engaged with the writer’s mind, imaginings, and soul. 
 
 


During past centuries, published memoirs generally were written by persons of high achievement, or who had encountered some event of great significance as viewed by their entire culture.  Near the end of the last century, and into our own, with self-publishing available, memoirs have exploded as a variety of published writing. 

(My Amazon search just now, using the single word memoirs, pulled up over 419,000 titles…of course, my search was not nuanced, but that’s a lot of books that have some relationship with memoirs!)
 
 

What is lamentable in our age of social media me-me-me-ism is that many persons who have lived their lives are stirred to write and to publish their memoir, whether of general interest or not. 

As a man who has written one memoir (and who is writing another), I am aware that I might be chided for deciding on my own authority that it is important to the world that I ponder in print on the truths of my life.  Who am I, after all? 

All I can say is that, manifestly, some memoirs rise above the ordinary into the significant. In that case, speaking as one who writes anyway, writing a memoir is worth a try.    

I am hungry to read memoirs.  What I want to gain from any memoir I read is awareness of how this other writer has done the memoirist’s job.    
 
 

I ask for your suggestions.  What should I read? 

 
As I read memoirs, especially I like to encounter--
  • Christian memoirs by believing Christians;
  • Jewish memoirs by committed Jews;
  • Memoirs by religious seekers who avowedly pursue Christianity;
  • “Spiritual” memoirs by religious seekers who view multiple religions phenomenologically with no struggle to select one over the others;
  • Skeptical memoirs that don’t desire to select any religion at all;
  • The “almost theres.”
 
 

I am eager for suggestions from you regarding memoirs you recommend, among any of these types—books which have moved you, books that are significant.  Please make any suggestions you have, and give me a sentence about them.

Particularly, coming from those of you who are Christian readers, I’m interested to read the “almost theres.”  
 
 

In my language, an “almost there” is a memoir written by a serious-minded, often very skilled writer, who is pondering on the page, usually with a tone of anxiety, about the nature of his or her life.  There may be an illness, or a relationship problem, or something else that produces a sense of wretchedness or emptiness of the writer’s soul.

A Christian reader of such a memoir may have a sensation that the writer suffers from lack of hope.  That reader, as a Christian, has hope, which is his or her possession, due to redemption provided by God through Jesus Christ.  See, for example, 1 Peter 3:15, which speaks of that same hope. 
 
 

When I finish reading an “almost there”—I finished reading one several nights ago—I am filled with sadness.  Having spent hours and hours with the writer of this particular book, a woman, it seems unlikely to me that she will find her way to the hope that is in me. 

Of course, anything can happen for the Lord’s glory, and Channa and I ourselves came late in life to Jesus Christ.  To those who knew us beforehand, perhaps our progress would have been judged unlikely, too.    

This woman’s memoir has sold many copies.  Clearly, her situation and the way she ponders the events and the sensations of her life, her marriage, her career and that of her husband, her child’s life--these are very life-like.
These things are pondered by her as being the way things are, for her; people who resonate with her view of the way things are have bought her book and enjoyed it. 

But I hope that another memoir might come from this woman, whose craft of writing I admire.  I would welcome a new memoir in which she reveals that she is not almost there, but there. 

And still pondering….

 
 

​So, my friends, what should I read?
        
 


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10 Comments
floyd link
10/7/2017 03:21:28 pm

A person who I believe is an "almost there", whether he likes it or not, is Rick Bragg. His memoir titled "All Over But The Shoutin'," is a classic Southern tribute to his mom. He is wonderful story teller.

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Dikkon
10/7/2017 03:38:08 pm

Thanks, Floyd! Just what I'm looking for.

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Wendy Andree
10/7/2017 10:47:35 pm

Two come to mind tonight....
A Severe Mercy: VanAuken
Surprised By Joy: Lewis

Reply
Dikkon
10/8/2017 01:30:16 pm

Thanks, Wendy. I know both books, and the fact that VanAuken was local (or reasonably so) is a thing that enchanted me about his book when I read it soon after Channa and I became Christians. It was fun to read about Lynchburg College and to envision it in my mind--where our then-Jewish daughter had attended--and my then-Jewish wife and self had wandered around when visiting her. Only to find later that the Holy Spirit had hovered there, in that place, with VanAuken!

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Mary Langer Thompson
10/9/2017 09:20:56 pm

Hi, Dikkon. I'm very involved with teaching Memoir, and perhaps you would like to read:
"All Our Yesterdays: A Collection of Memoirs." These are by high school seniors who interviewed "Memoir Stars" (age 50 or over) and wrote 3500 word memoirs. These were published by the California Writer's Club, High Desert Branch and students went on to college as published writers. The year before this one, we published "Let it Be Remembered: A Collection of Memoirs." Both are available on Amazon. I'm the Director again this year and a class of high school juniors are writing them. In the back of each book is a bibliography of more memoirs to read, some written by members of the California Writers Club. (If you private message me your address, I'll send you one. It would be great if you'd give an honest review, too, but that's not required. We're trying to improve the instruction as community members and writers go in to the school to teach memoir writing classes.)

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Dikkon
10/10/2017 08:50:31 am

Hi, Mary! What a fascinating note. And I am sure the result of your teaching must be fun to read. I'll private message to you. Blessings to you and yours!

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Mart Martin
10/15/2017 10:14:28 pm

Dikkon, I assume by now you have read "Hillbilly Elegy" by J. D. Vance. He was involved in his youth group, left the faith during college, and notes at the end of his book that he is pondering a return to it. And if you're looking for a good biography, "For the Glory" by Duncan Hamilton is about the missionary life of Olympic gold medalist Eric Liddell. I put that book next to Eric Metaxas' "Bonhoeffer" and C.S. Lewis' "Surprised by Joy" on my bookshelf.

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Dikkon
10/16/2017 09:11:23 pm

Thanks, Mart! I read half of Hillbilly Elegy, felt that I had gotten his point, and put it down. Now, I am glad to hear that there's more there, near the end. I'll go back to it on your recommendation.

You mentioned the new Liddell biography in an earlier reply to another book-oriented post. Two mentions by someone with discernment such as yours--AND the description of where you shelve the book--puts it right at the top on my reading list, after the book that Channa's and my bible-study, weekly group have undertaken, which we've only just begun.

Do you know Harry Blamires' The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (1963, British). It's a recommendation by our pastor. Fundamentally it is a challenge to Christians to be empowered to continue to think Christianly (love his adverb!) when in conversation or debate with secularists. He issues the challenge in the face of what he characterizes as our willingness to subvert our Christian language/ethos to the language/ethos of secularists, so as to maintain the conversation--but we fail to maintain it because the conversation becomes on their terms.

Anyway, that's the first chapter. I don't really know where we're going from here!

How prescient--this was stated in 1963!

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Betty Draper link
11/6/2017 10:54:17 pm

I have read a couple of books that made me ponder, one titled, Surviving the Fatherland by Annette Oppenlan. Another one is, The Wall Around Your Heart by Mary Demuth. One more good one for me on World War II, Helmets and Lipstick by Ruth G. Haskell. Anything Bonhoeffer wrote is in my book, thought provoking. I love a challenge to sharpen my faith so to sharpen it cut to the bone. ONe more, Failure to Scream by Robert Hicks.

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Dikkon
11/7/2017 08:32:33 pm

Betty, you've broadened my horizons enormously! I was not familiar with a single one of these titles; thank you! Bonhoeffer of course I know, but not as well as I ought to. Keep reading, my friend.

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