Ghyll:Memoir

A memoir', short for remember moi, is a fairly inaccurate written commentary on a portion of the author's life: about their accomplishments, fond reminiscings, or dirt, scandals, and secrets they just can't keep buried any longer. A number of overly long and boring autobiographies have been edited into memoirs, shortening the page count by a few thirds. Some, such as Mother Mutton's Golden Book on the Timed Lives of Twelve Important (and Fun to Color) Antagonists, add pictures. And coloring.

There are many classes of memoirs besides the colorless frames and souless shortenings described prior. Some attempt to justify an evil life, giving tired explanations on the intrigue and manipulations that forced a gentle hand. Others accept that their evil life was a complete fallacy created by consensus reality, and this, his memoir, is the way he'd've like things to turn out instead. Still others will lament about the downfall his last years in life took, leaving him penniless and destitute - and, as transformational theory would have it, the ooodles and ooodles of money the book made after his death were passed on to his publisher.

Of a more laughable nature, however, are the memoirs that actually have little to do with the author and focus instead on the people the author knew. Two such examples are His Last Name is "Danger": A Memoir of Odgar IV and Thoedore Aspic's I Knew Meldersen and You Are No Meldersen. These are often attempts to cash in on the popularity of someone else - fame by association. They work incredibly well, and I'm hoping to find similar success with my How I Learned Romance From Big Brown Riding Hoof, planned for the summer of 2 EC.

Citations: Cartographer's Nerves, Transformational theory, .

--Morbus Iff 13:35, 19 Aug 2005 (EDT)