The diary as a way of recording the particulars of daily life or an introspective account of personal responses and thoughts. Recently there have been at least two very arresting books which challenge the idea of a chronological diary: Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness: the End of a Diary and Heidi Julavits’ The Folded Clock: a Diary.
Have diaries been important to read? To write? Have you learned from reading journals or diaries.
Feel free to bring in any diaries or your experiences trying to write one.
This subject is obsolete or not: diaries and journals.
Why would the digital age make any difference? What’s a blog other than a digital diary? If they were ever relevant, they still are. And I think they are.
If I lived in an oppressing dictatorship, I would write my thoughts on paper and keep them hidden because I wouldn’t want to publish them online and then be slapped into prison or shot.
I think diaries and journals, whether electric or analog, are more important than ever. I’m currently reading the second volume of The Library of America’s history of the U.S. Civil War, and it struck me over the weekend that so many of the first-hand accounts of history come from diary entries, personal letters, and similar written sources from everyday people. As we communicate more often via telephone, texting, email, and other media that don’t provide a permanent record (unless one chooses to, say, save emails), a lot of the history of everyday people isn’t being recorded.
A lot of what goes into most emails, text messages and blogs may seem mundane, but it’s not really for us to decide what will be important 50 or 500 years from now.
Whether it is public or private shapes for many of us how much we tell.
Also the format makes a big difference in what gets preserved and for how long.
I remember writing long stuff by hand which would not work anymore.
There is something else: what if a person does not believe any more that the writing gets it? A current book tells of a woman who kept years of daily long entries, thousands of pages. All of a sudden she put it aside and she started to write again. She had nothing from those original pages and she wrote a fantastic book. She promised she would have no quotes or anything from that first diary effort. (Her book is called Ongoingness.)
Can our diaries tell our stories as they are over time or do they just put in pieces?
I was originally trained as a historian before moving on to professional endeavors that pay a living wage.
Journals and diaries are invaluable to historians. Samuel Pepys kept a famous set of diaries. He lived in London in the 1660’s. He experienced the Great Fire and one of the episodes of the plague.
Anne Frank’s journal has touched millions, but it also provide a personal lens to life during the Nazi regime.
Many presidents (and other heads of state) have kept diaries. Both the Adams, and Truman, for example. Read the diaries and you learn not only about the person, but about the time they lived in, their society, events big and small.
You don’t to be famous to keep a diary or a journal. I don’t think the format matters, on or offline. I do think there’s absolutely a place for doing it. I think some people enjoy the activity now. And the record later is fascinating.
But if someone found what you wrote on paper, it could still get you in trouble. Better to keep it written in your brain where it’s safe from prying eyes.