new book

Although the new book is more of a traditional autobiography which was constantly criticized by Gertrude Stein, there are some aspects of A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison to take note of. First, the narrator admits the limits of her memory. The very first sentence of the story is in fact a quite modest statement that her "recollection is too imperfect." Next, the tone of the narrative is not self-indulgent but reserved and relatively modest. One of the criticisms Stein cast on traditional autobiographies was that they were written as though the authors are a whole being, having lived a life full of purposeful actions and events. Although the Narrative has chronologically linear structure, it resembles Stein's writings in that, as far as I have read, it is more of a listing of what the narrator remembers than a presentation of a complete life of apparant significance.