Thank you for the interview. There is so much to digest and learn about goodness and evil. It seems simple yet so complex, so complex yet seems so simple.
Late to respond, but I love the closing thought that writing eases the pain of some memories more than time does. This is why writing is so powerful for people with terminal illness -- not because it's therapeutic, but because it gives them control, the ability to create order for themselves. I used to teach a unit on cancer narratives, and I began with the master narrative of survivorship that every person diagnosed with cancer must contend with. Are you going to turn into an ubermensch like Lance Armstrong? Are you going to make everyone feel good, like Randy Pausch in his famous "last lecture"? Some of those most powerful cancer narratives are written AGAINST a master narrative like that. It must be true also of other traumas or painful memories.
@Mary L. Tabor, what a gem of an interview this is! More to think about than can be taken in at one go, about how we define good and evil. Marvelous synchronicity for me: I just had an exchange with @Sherman Alexie about how we think of the monstrous, in regard to the poem he posted today about a boy he knew who became a serial killer.
Thank you for the interview. There is so much to digest and learn about goodness and evil. It seems simple yet so complex, so complex yet seems so simple.
Late to respond, but I love the closing thought that writing eases the pain of some memories more than time does. This is why writing is so powerful for people with terminal illness -- not because it's therapeutic, but because it gives them control, the ability to create order for themselves. I used to teach a unit on cancer narratives, and I began with the master narrative of survivorship that every person diagnosed with cancer must contend with. Are you going to turn into an ubermensch like Lance Armstrong? Are you going to make everyone feel good, like Randy Pausch in his famous "last lecture"? Some of those most powerful cancer narratives are written AGAINST a master narrative like that. It must be true also of other traumas or painful memories.
Thank you, @Jessi Diana
Thank you, @Jess Diana
@Mary L. Tabor, what a gem of an interview this is! More to think about than can be taken in at one go, about how we define good and evil. Marvelous synchronicity for me: I just had an exchange with @Sherman Alexie about how we think of the monstrous, in regard to the poem he posted today about a boy he knew who became a serial killer.