Scan barcode
A review by thesaltiestlibrarian
A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
As many people have already said, it's incredibly difficult to rate something like a memoir. (Unless you're James Frey, unapologetic pathological liar and narcissist. Then you're rating fiction.)
I'll be purely looking at the writing, then. I've done the academic circuit, and am about to dive back in for my Master's. One trend I've noticed with people who want to tell their story in academia is that it's easy for them to fall into the trap of "academic writing"--i.e. a lot of words that take three routes around Robin Hood's barn and then ultimately come up saying very little. It sounds pretty, sure. But it doesn't hit. It doesn't grip. It has few moments where it swoops in and promises to hurt you, to give you truth, but covers that truth in prose impenetrable to the layperson.
That is Belcourt's big failing here. Laypeople are going to want to read this book, and they're not going to understand what he's saying. Prose doesn't have to be boring or straightforward or easy. Cormac McCarthy is an excellent example. Sometimes one must reread in a McCarthy book, but in the end the meaning always becomes clear.
Art isn't always easy. It shouldn't be. But it should be accessible.
I'll be purely looking at the writing, then. I've done the academic circuit, and am about to dive back in for my Master's. One trend I've noticed with people who want to tell their story in academia is that it's easy for them to fall into the trap of "academic writing"--i.e. a lot of words that take three routes around Robin Hood's barn and then ultimately come up saying very little. It sounds pretty, sure. But it doesn't hit. It doesn't grip. It has few moments where it swoops in and promises to hurt you, to give you truth, but covers that truth in prose impenetrable to the layperson.
That is Belcourt's big failing here. Laypeople are going to want to read this book, and they're not going to understand what he's saying. Prose doesn't have to be boring or straightforward or easy. Cormac McCarthy is an excellent example. Sometimes one must reread in a McCarthy book, but in the end the meaning always becomes clear.
Art isn't always easy. It shouldn't be. But it should be accessible.