Form is important whether you’re writing or reading everything from nonfiction to poetry. I found this to be especially true when I was reading Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening by Stephen Kuusisto. Eavesdropping is a beautifully written memoir encompassing Stephen’s experiences of living life as a blind man. When the book was introduced to me, I didn’t initially know what to make of it. The book was introduced to me in a creative writing class focused on listening and although it made perfect sense to include this memoir in our readings, I was still unsure of the type of emotions this would stir within me. My favorite aspect of this memoir is the way Stephen frames the book.
He begins the book discussing his childhood, but not in the way one would expect. He doesn’t discuss it as a casual observer or as a man reflecting back on his past. He’s in the moment. He creates the scene by describing all the sounds he heard growing up. He relives the sounds that created his childhood and as readers we relive them with him. As the memoir progresses the tone changes from lighthearted to jaded in a span of a few chapters. This change is obvious to the reader and is probably due to the callous way in which people treated him. I mean, who would ask a blind man if he wants to be saved? He shares a few moments in which this happens to him in the memoir. People’s insensitivity surprises me. How does being born blind have anything to do with religious “salvation” and why would people be presumptuous enough to believe he’s unhappy the way he is?
What I enjoyed most about this book are the details with which he describes the sounds he hears. He uses a lot of metaphors to describe them. The only aspect that made my attention wane was the shift from childhood to adulthood. We experience the loss of innocence with him and this loss becomes an overwhelming force by the end.