The Dodgers Jacket
A eulogy for my grandfather
On Tuesday I shared an introduction to defamiliarization, a technique for rendering scenes and characters more memorable by stripping them of familiar meanings and thus making them strange.
My primary source for this concept is the novelist Charles Baxter, who offers the typical eulogy as exactly the model to avoid, since painting characters in the saintly ways that we memorialize loved ones causes them to vanish from memory.
I thought of Baxter while writing my Grandpa Herman’s eulogy in early January, 2021. I was still living with my family in Iowa then and was not able to travel back to Montana for the funeral. So I recorded my tribute and shared it with the pastor. The voiceover file is the very one that was played during the service, which I attended via Facebook Live. How surreal it was to hear my own voice echoing in the sanctuary while I watched and listened from a thousand miles away, invisible to everyone there.
Many of you will be good tests for Baxter’s hypothesis, which is that strangers only respond to a eulogy if there are some quirks or oddities to make the departed seem real. How effective is this memorial in conjuring the man I love for you, a stranger?
I share today’s post with full members in appreciation of your ongoing support. Thank you for walking this road with me.