I. Words and express

1. What we're all looking for——what we want to see pop out of your papers——is individuality.

pop out 突出、凸显

2. When he turned 65 I began to pester him.

pester  v. annoy persistently    synonymous: tease, badger, bug, beleaguer

3. What they often mean is that they don't have anything to say——so meager is their after-school existence.

meager deficient in amount or quality or extent    synonymous: stingy, scrimpy

4.Memoir isn't the summary of a life; it's a window into a life, very much like  a photograph in its selective composition.

"memoir is a window into a life" window用在这里十分形象，“回忆录是窥探生活的一扇窗”。

5. For Alfred Kazin, smell is a thread that he followes back to his boyhood in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn,

thread the connections that link the various part of an event or argument together.

synonymous: train of thought

6.Virginia Woolf was an avid user of highly personal forms.

avid 1.(often followed by 'for') ardently or excessively desirous; 2.marked by active interest and enthusiasm

synonymous: eager, zealous, greedy

II. Summary

Every writer should give themselves permission to tell who they are. That means, they should write about themselves, with confidence and pleasure. However, in a memoir, the writer need not  tell reader everything in their life. Autobiography spans an entire life, but memoir only shows the writer's some certain corner of his or her life. So the writer should select material carefully, then make sure each of them do useful work.

Just like Zinsser said, "Memoir is the art of inventing the truth." Actually, the details make the art truthful. The detail contains the life they experienced, the people or neighbors around them, which make people unique. Also, among those people under different culture background. Memoir can pop out their differences. The most interesting character in a memoir is that, it will turn out to be the person who wrote it.

III. Thoughts

Zinsser在本章节开篇指出，一些人人“不敢”在文章中写自己，因为他们怀疑这样写作是否可行，相比写出真实的自己，许多作者认为他们应当投其所好，写一些符合读者胃口的作品。但实际上，作者最应该写的恰恰正是自己。我们最熟悉的人是自己，因此，在文章中彰显自我是多么合情合理的事。当然，我们要表达的是自我真实的一面，而并非是个人主义的价值层面。

除却Zinsser提到的，在写作回忆录是需要注意的细节与真实性，我认为写作回忆录的难度还在于面对自己的勇气。回忆录是有关过去的记忆，每一次的回忆是对过去的回顾与反思，我们在回忆中面对自己的不完美，并且与那个不完美的自己和解，这无疑十分需要勇气。比如奉旨填词的才子词人柳永，少年时自诩白衣卿相，何等狂放，而在仕途蹭蹬之后，忆起当年，却是“未名未禄，绮陌红楼，往往经岁迁延”，由此，才有了长调《戚氏》，赢得了“《离骚》寂寞千载后，《戚氏》一曲凄凉终”，在回忆中直面自我，直抒己心，才能够实现对自我的超越。