Blog 12

 Since the beginning of our memoir unit I have begun to respect memoir authors much more. They are able to remember such minute details that make the overall story much more interesting and complex. However, I have also noticed how we as readers seem to take what the author is writing as fact, when in reality they could be completely wrong. 

In Educated, by Tara Westover, the attention to detail paints vivid pictures in the reader's mind of what her life was like. She is able to recall details like the color and texture of her grandma's carpet so vividly, it's like you can almost feel the carpet under your toes. Although the author clearly has a great memory, she includes many clarifications, explaining that sometimes the way she remembers things isn't how other people remember them. At one point in the novel, she distinctly remembers asking a man for help while her brother was injured, though the man in question doesn’t even remember being there that day. Whether or not the man was there is not some minute detail that doesn’t affect anything, it's actually quite important to the way the story is told. Reading this called into question a lot of what I had been learning, after all, the author is human and could easily make mistakes, or lie about any of the events of the story, and there's no way to fact check someone else's life.

The probability that the author was making anything up is very low, yet clearly even her own memories of moments weren’t one hundred percent correct. Our memories can warp and change over time depending on how we view things, so even when we think we're telling the truth we could get something wrong. This further shows the importance of approaching any story, or even news article, with a little bit of skepticism. People will always try to change facts to manipulate readers, so its important to question the legitimacy of everything you read.