Family secrets by Annette Kuhn is partly an autobiography and partly an extended essay on memory and how memory supports out understanding of both our own lives and the historical context that we live in.   Kuhn describes it as a book that has sprung from the genre of 'revisionist autobiography' (p.147) and points out that whatever autobiography is 'inevitably the outcome of a considerable reworking of the raw materials of an identity and a life story' (p.149).

I found this book in parts fascinating, in parts heart- breaking and partly terrifying. The subsequently was because it managed to bring dorsum so many memories of my own past. I was built-in only a few years after than Kuhn and brought up in an upper working-course family (my father owned a butcher's shop). Different Kuhn's, my female parent was very pushy and was drastic for me to go to university. In retrospect I call up this was because she had missed out the opportunity of doing and so because of the war. My female parent was German, living in the USA, and repatriated to Frg during the war and, I think, resented the missed opportunities. My father died when I was young, my mother worked hard to keep the family running, and eventually married my stepfather, who, by coincidence, was a professional photographer.

Mother

Mother

Me

Me

Mother and me at similar ages!

I took multiple notes, and these led on to other thoughts, and I volition attempt to summarise them:

  • 'Telling stories about the past, our past, is a key moment in the making of ourselves' (p.2) – but how much exercise we tell, how much practice we hide, and how much practise we actually remember? All families accept secrets, and many are like to those in other families – mine every bit much every bit Kuhn's.
  • 'The by is gone forever' (p.iv) – what traces remain. Looking for them in your memory is like archaeology, making a story from small fragments. Different readings of the fragments may pb to a different story.
  • The past is not single – the historical context informs your memory, equally much as it informs what really happened. WWII had a major touch on on my by. Much of it was hidden as my mother was concerned about the stigma of being German language. Much nosotros only learnt from her in the very last months of her life.
  • Memory work can start from a single piece of information, a single photo establish at the lesser of a box, or a hidden letter. This evokes emotions, uses the intellect and may get part of the truth – at least your truth. A photograph tin be interpreted, it gives information near the person, the identify, who took the image, who was missed out and why it was taken. The clothes talk about the social aspects. The result may exist recalled – although, if many years ago, one may question the accuracy. If the image has been looked at and discussed many times, each time the story might accept changed. There is no single, last story.
  • Family albums tell a more circuitous story, partly mediated by the club the images are shown in. My album is random – the pictures are not in whatsoever historical gild – simply the one I acquired them in. I also accept boxes (multiple) of unsorted and unlabelled photos – the society I sort them into may change the story. Which ones get priority? And why? Looking at these images is like looking at a box of jigsaw pieces, without the flick!
  • 'This past-in-the-future, nostalgia-in-prospect' (p.23) – makes you lot desire to produce a 'proficient' story of the 'ideal family' – even if information technology isn't quite correct. Is the truth what you remember or what actually happened? Or what makes you feel good about the time?
  • How does culture issue what you take from images? What about the films y'all take watched equally a kid? How do you reconcile what you lot felt then with what y'all see when analysing them as an adult? What near the books y'all have read? Your reaction as a child may accept been (probably was) mainly emotional – does this accept validity in a critical response to a flick or book as an adult concerned with theory? Volition information technology make for a wider understanding – or does it cloud the issue?
  • Any given photo will hold multiple meanings, for unlike people, at dissimilar times and in different social contexts. It may be specific to a family – but also generic to the culture – the hyper-cute baby photo, smiling upwards at you, it's your infant, information technology'south y'all as a child, it's the motion picture that advertises the photographer'southward studio, its something to embarrass your son with to his girlfriend. It's a memory of a time that will never exist repeated.
  • Are the main images in your library just of the kid, only of the adults or groups? And why? What does this say about family unit relationships? I accept very few of me with my parents but several of mum with her family. Why? Was I not there? Were photos saved for the 'special occasions' – family visiting from abroad. A very different situation from the multiple images taken nowadays – but volition they still be effectually in 50 years from now?
  • Photos were oft taken in all-time wearing apparel, dressed-up, in uniform – to show pride? A credit to the mother 'an cease in itself' (p.62). Or in a cute setting, an important place – "look where we take been". Does the article of clothing and the dressing-up tell more about the dresser (usually the mother) and then the person? What does it say about the family relationships?
  • Photos may be taken to marker a special occasion – the image and then brings back memories of the occasion – not just the photograph, both the local – we were in the pub, Aunty Mary's house, the garden, – with Sam, Jane, that odd person from downward the street – when the Queen was married, the Two Towers blown upwardly or England won the World Cup. Moving from the specific and local to the actual event. Especially relevant when marking global celebrations.
  • The image tells almost the relationship between the photographer, the person photographed and the person the image is for. Why does the child look uncomfortable? What was the parent expecting past dressing them similar that? How subtle is the rebellion?
  • Pop memory of shared events – can be provoked past images of the fourth dimension, celebrations, national and local. People'southward retentiveness of a major upshot is often surprising similar – merely may focus on the specific – where they were at the time before the actual event is brought into focus.
  • Changing places, homes, schools, countries has an consequence on not only where yous are but who you are and how you interact with others. it's a way of changing your social background – but you may never fit in totally. Non everyone tin can be a chameleon! Roots are of import and abandoning them can/does lead to feelings of insecurity. You can 'For survivals sake yous can….learn to continue placidity about what really matters to you……but you take a chance forgetting the value of those 'resources of generations gone before' that might yet be at that place inside you, your resilience , your courage' (p.116).
  • School has an affect on what yous do – not only then just much later on. Like Kuhn I was streamed into the 'academic' side, in my case scientific discipline. I call back being told 'It's no point you lot doing art, you lot're likewise clever, and anyway you tin can't draw" – the latter annotate was mayhap true, just in that location was no consideration that other forms of art might exist, or that I might benefit from engaging with them. In spite of taking pictures all my life, it wasn't until I was much older (in my l'due south) that I started 'making art'.
  • Why do images from the past, that we are not directly involved with effect usa and so much? Kuhn gives the instance of the St. Pauls'due south picture in the London blitz. I can call up of ones from the Africa corp in WWII. How does the commonage memory that these invoke impact on personal memory? And vice versa?
  • Remembering, looking dorsum, allows for changes. Memory can exist sparked by other people's pictures, paintings, music and writing. Annihilation can be used as a basis for memory work and allow you to make sense of what you see. Other pieces are very individual and detail to you lot (Barthes'due south picture show of his mother every bit a child), an image I have just found of my grandmother who I never knew.
  • All this leads to the question – how much of memory is imagination?
  • Photographs can be used equally groundwork – merely they may all the same tell lies, partial truths – simply rarely the whole truth. They atomic number 82 to a 'constant reworking of memory and identity (p.154). The act/activity (call up it is an ongoing process) is not neutral. There is e'er 'secondary revision'. New stories can be told. Things can be healed. Lives tin can be inverse.

This whole book is well worth reading (and re-reading). Maybe information technology spoke so much to me because I have a similar groundwork – merely the lessons learned are valid for everyone.

Reference:

Kuhn, A. (2002). Family secrets: acts of memory and imagination. London; New York: Verso.