Notes toward an autobiography by others

“I am still someone who absent-mindedly reads aloud from any sign I see, as if it is some way of learning where I am.” 

I sometimes read aloud random words we pass as we’re driving along. I rarely do it when I’m driving, I note, but when I am in the passenger seat, my attention is a little loose and catches on things. Kent will say, “What?” And I will say, “Oh. Sorry. I was just reading a random sign.”

Alexander Chee in the quote above says, “it is some way of learning where I am.” For me I think it’s just reading, which I do a lot. There I am going over the landscape, reading it, and sometimes the landscape features words; the words go into my eyes and fall out of my mouth. It’s not really talking to myself. It’s more reflexive than that, like saying Mm when you run your fingers over a silky surface.

source:

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: essays

by Alexander Chee

Mariner Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York