Running In the Family and M&M

Running In the Family, by Michael Ondaatje is a good read so far. His memories have me wanting to keep reading. This memoir is my favorite out of all the memoirs that we have read for class. It has kept me entertained and wanting more from this author. One of my favorite chapters is The Courtship, Page,31. I am fond of this chapter because of his father's life at this age was very humorist. The way Michael tells the story of his father's way of life living in England and his parents not knowing his where a bouts. Also his father's few engagements. When Michael's grandfather just sat back and kept silent during all of the craziness it was very comical too. Towards the end of the chapter I came to realize that his father would like to jump around a lot and not stay in one place. It seems when he would be bored he would just get up and leave. Of course his grandparents were not happy with their son especially when he was going to get fish and two days later wound up in Trincomalee. When his fiance sent him a letter to break off the engagement, his father decided it was time for a road trip to Colombo. His father would not let him have the car so he found a ride with his uncle Aelian. The arrived in Colombo very intoxicated, but Michael's mother decided to marry his father after all.
During this chapter it helps me recall that there are people in the world that have crazy ideas just to pack up and leave just for the thrill. Michael's father just wanted to get away from his family, he wasn't like the rest of them. This chapter made me very intrigued to what else is to come in the next chapters.
The Memoir and the Memoirist hasn't really held my attention. When reading the twenty pages there were some lines that I liked. "No alternative is possible: the story commands us to write it as a way of sentencing it to memory" (80). In Kathryn Harrison's memoir she writes, "I'd heard myself speak what I hadn't yet thought" (84). That happens to all of us that write and speak. I am still questioning what it really means to me. Also when Larson is mentioning Eggers who auditioned for The Real World, he mentions he "admires the fearlessness" in him, "he gets sucked back into the past as he writes about it" (98). This is true to all who write of the past. We all get sucked back trying to remember every intricate detail to help us remember. We have to get sucked back in, to understand what really happened to get back out and move forward.