The Main reason for this is fairly shallow and straightforward: an autobiography needs to be interesting to hold the reader's attention. People seeking first-hand accounts of another's life generally do not want to hear ramblings on insignificant minutia. Again, there are exceptions such as Marcel Proust, but many people would disagree with me to that extent.
On a similar thread, many people go to autobiographies for the wisdom of an event they have not experienced. Conversions, life threatening experiences, interactions with odd cultures all fit this description. Without having lived a singular life, it is unlikely that one would have the kind of hindsight wisdom on subjects that the general public would often seek autobiographical accounts on.
All of this is not to say that a good, yet relatively uneventful, life is unworthy of autobiography. I would venture to say that everyone's stories are so different that everyone's lives are worth an immortalized account. However, lives that lack the qualities mentioned above would likely produce autobiographies that would gather dust on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and inevitably end up in the clearance bin.
I would personally be thrilled to live a life that merits a good autobiography, characterized more by action than drama. However, I definitely do not feel that not having such a life would mark my time on earth as wasted. Like nearly everything else, this idea of what kind of life makes a good autobiography simply relies on the public opinion at the time, not any real, tangible qualifications.
Posts
I have two questions/points. The first is why do you think that the ordinary person's life is not full of drama. From my experience, almost everyone's life is filled with dramatic/ life-changing moments. The second is that all the autobiographies ever published have not been read. There all also those who have autobiographies written, but that the public has no interest in. I actually just came up with another idea: Do people really look in autobiographies for the wisdom of the ages? I would really not be look in Paris Hilton's autobiography for wisdom.
ReplyDeleteIn order. Thats not what I said specifically. I was drawing a distinction between the drama that occurs in most people's lives, which tends to be insignificant in action to the average reader, versus the action in autobiographies that gain a significant following. As to your second, that's purely economics. Whether a publisher picks an autobiography to publish is says more about his/her expertise since there is generally a algorithm that can be used to decide which ones will be successful. Finally, with Paris Hilton you bring up an interesting point. I believe that many, if not most people, do look for wisdom in autobiographies, alas even in Paris Hilton's. However, you are right, and I did neglect to mention the millions of other reasons that people buy autobiographies. All of these, I believe, do require a level of insight, excitement, or simply star power that transcends the common wisdom or excitement of the average life.
ReplyDelete