It wouldn't be fair to compare 'Lose Your Mother' to many of our other readings this semester because it was clearly written with a different purpose in mind. It is inwardly directed rather than focused on the world around the author, less about tourism than about Saidiya's emotional journey and preconceptions. It is more centrally a memoir than anything else we have read, and while no less meticulously researched (as the unreferenced bank of endnotes in the back attests) than, for instance, Linenthal's Preserving Memory, Saidiya's prominent personality infuses every page. It isn't clear to me if this is a good or bad thing.
Is a memoir a good format for this sort of exploration? I was surprised by the notion that there are often hard facts behind Hartman's words, but I found what I read hard to believe due to the gobs of melodrama liberally spread from cover to cover. The lack of notations when references are cited and the repetitive self-referential anecdotes about the author's naiveté combine to make Lose Your Mother quite the opposite of the dry, academic text it could have been. Personally, I feel it swings too far to the other side, and that in her novelistic narrative Hartman attempts to stretch the significance of her intimate story too far. Her emphasis on undermining her authenticity as a narrator through often sentimental, often self-deprecating remarks about how little she understands do not necessarily contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of issues like the slave trade, repatriation, and anti-American sentiments.
It'd probably be missing the point to continue this vague tirade against Hartman's prose. (Just had to get that off my chest, man, it was really bothering me.) But it is interesting to consider the effects of Hartman's choice of narrative style on the reader. Being a memoir, this is an openly subjective and personal book, but in the context of this class and thanks to the sizable section of endnotes in the back, it also lays claim to objectivity. Hartman's stated goal for her research mission to Ghana on page 17:
"I wanted to bring the past closer. I wanted to understand how the ordeal of slavery began. I wanted to comprehend how a boy came to be worth three yards of cotton cloth and a bottle of rum or a woman equivalent to a basketful of cowries. I wanted to cross the boundary that separated kin from stranger. I wanted to tell the story of the commoners -- the people made the fodder of the slave trade and pushed into remote and desolate regions to escape captivity."Hartman's goal was essentially personal. This was about a journey of personal discovery, the quest for lineage and family history, couched in the history of the transatlantic African slave trade. Her secondary stated goal is to tell the story of the commoners. While her expectations and plans certainly changed as she discovered more about Ghanian contempt for African-Americans, one facet of her original research plan remained the same - to learn more about herself and her relationship with Africa.
How well does she tell the stories of others? When she claims to want to tell the stories of commoners ("those people made the fodder of the slave trade," not those left untouched by it), it seems as though she means to tell her own family history. When Hartman does relay stories about the experiences of those she meets in Ghana, she relies heavily on her imagination (one episode in particular concerns three boys she meets at Elmina castle (89), whereupon Saidiya reflects at length on their histories without ever actually asking them anything.)
Does Hartman's writing style actually prevent the reader from seeing many of her points? Can a memoir be a useful tool for exploring history, or is it too couched in the personal? I think it'd be interesting to talk about this in more detail in class, where I can't wait to find out that everyone else loved her writing style and didn't find it distracting at all.
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