autobiographical form

[TERRY CAESAR]

     Anyone who enjoys the autobiographical presentations as much as I do will
appreciate a couple of items from Aldo Buzzi's travel book (or whatever it is).
Buzzi gives the life of Gorky "in a very brief autobiographical note." To
wit: "1878. cobbler's assistant. 1879.: apprentice draftsman. 1880: dishwasher
on a ship. 1884: errand boy. 1885: baker. 1886: chorus boy in an operatta com-
pany. 1887. I try to kill myself. 1890: copyist for a lawyer. 1891: I make a
tour of Russia on foot. 1892: I publish my first novel." So Gorky from age
ten to age twenty four. 

     Then on the next page of Buzzi's Journey to the Land of the Flies someone
called Mikhail Zoshchenko (1895-1958) turns up. 
     "I was a carpenter, a hunter on the island of Nova Zemlya, an apprentice
carpenter, a telephone operator, a policeman at the Ligovo station, an agent of
the criminal sqaud, an actor, and again I went as a volunteer to the front with
the Red Army.
      "Here is an arid list of the events that concern me:
       death sentences, one,
       wounds, three,
       suicides, two,
       beatings, three." (Preface to the Italian translation of Before the
Sunrise.)

     As Buzzi comments, "two suicides seem excessive, even for those difficult
times." One of the pleasures of our autobiographies is that our times don't seem
so difficult. Or at least, whatever else, we all grow up to read Pynchon.

                  No longer a dishwasher or janitor,

                           Terry