Responses to "Memoir: A History" and excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love

The first text, "Memoir:  A History" was stylistically a bit strange in that it was a review of a review, but throughout the piece the sense of it being a review yielded to that of it being a cursory history of the genre of memoir.  I thought the piece did an excellent job of narrating the genre's history and pointing out its landmarks, such as the work of St. Augustine, the Book of Margery Kempe, and the secular movement that led to what most of today's memoir is.  Despite the fact that it was partially a critique of memoir in general, I thought the article did a good job of remaining objective, pointing out the genre's flaws as well as its positive qualities.

The excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love was a combination of memoir, travelogue, and profile (a profile of the narrator's sister).  It is difficult to react appropriately to this particular excerpt outside the context of the work as whole.  This particular short piece was mostly a profile with little scene or movement, and if that is an accurate sample of the book as a whole, I imagine it probably leaves the reader wanting.  Also (again this is said with only knowledge of the particular excerpt), I found the narrator's martyrdom to be a little irritating, though perhaps the rest of the book justifies that aspect of her.