Learn From Masquerade by Rayda Jacobs
What Memoir Writers Can Learn From Rayda Jacobs’ Memoir
A memoir is an interpretation of a theme or themes from a person’s life – a reflection on what the events mean. It takes memories, and works them into an art form. Rayda Jacobs' memoir, Masquerade suffers from a lack of reflection.
The Theme
Rayda Jacobs’ main theme in Masquerade is Muslim faith and identity. Forced to leave South Africa during apartheid by unjust laws, she emigrates to Canada. Away from the closely-knit family and the Cape Flats Muslim community, she feels alone and vulnerable. Her marriage fails, and she battles to gain access to her children.
Finally, she returns to Cape Town, but the same issues plague her. She enters into relationships with unsuitable men, who let her down. At last she surrenders herself fully to God, and achieves great success.
However, her own religious experience is not explored in enough detail. The reader is left to gather up the scattered strands and to draw their own conclusions. The title, Masquerade is not built into the work, and seems like an afterthought.
Lesson for Memoir Writers One:
Good memoir needs analysis, a stepping back from the story to examine it. Identify your theme, and explore it to the end. Create the story around the theme.
Reflect on the Theme
Reflecting on the theme is part of writing a good memoir. Perhaps this book was written too quickly, without sufficient time for reflection. The editor could have ensured Jacobs teased out the themes to make them more rounded. But no matter how skilled the editor, he or she is always constrained by how far the memoir writer is prepared to go.
Lesson for Memoir Writers Two:
Don’t attempt memoir of confession if you are not prepared to reveal the details of your life and feelings. The reader becomes frustrated if they are given a hint of the person you are, but are left hungry to know more. Rather choose a genre of memoir, such as memoirs of portraiture, which describes places and people around you.
What Genre of Memoir is Masquerade?
Is this a memoir of confession? The tale of her falling from grace and returning to it? The blurb seems to suggest it is.
After the publication of her multi-award winning novel, ‘Confessions of a Gambler’, Jacobs was constantly asked if the novel was autobiographical. This memoir is an attempt to answer this question. But it does not tell enough of the details to answer it in a way that satisfies the reader.
In other ways, it reads as a memoir of achievements. It ends on a high, as Jacobs is invited to the Dubai film festival for the launch of the film of ‘Confessions of a Gambler’ – which she wrote, directed and starred in. She is overawed that God has answered her prayers. She has achieved, it seems, all she ever wanted.
Lesson for Memoir Writers Three:
Decide before you start which genre of memoir you are writing, and stick to it. The structure and focus is all important.
Lesson for Memoir Writers Four: Become emotionally involved
Jacobs alternates between writing in the first and third person. The reader might assume that the third person passages are to give wider context, a bird’s eye view of the events, and by doing so, to engage the reader more intensely in the emotional journey. In fact, the emotional absence of the author leaves the reader feeling uninvolved.
Writing a memoir is more than simply laying down the events of your life. It requires
- reflection
- focus, and
- clear themes.
Masquerade is published by Umuzi (Random House) 2008. ISBN 978 1 4152 0053 7
Masquerade
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