Me: A Memoir

by Brenda Ueland, Patricia Hampl (Introduction)

Brenda Ueland's own passionate coming-of-age story set in Minneapolis and Greenwich Village is the focus of this classic autobiography, first published in 1939. "She writes with spontaneous, confident zeal."-- New York Times "It is her masterpiece."--Patricia Hampl

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Writing, Womens, Autobiography

364 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Brenda Ueland was a journalist, editor, freelance writer, and teacher of writing. She is best known for her book If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit.

Ueland was born to Andreas and Clara Hampson Ueland; the third of seven children. She attended Wells and Barnard colleges and received her baccalaureate from Barnard in 1913. She lived in and around New York City for much of her adult life before returning to Minnesota in 1930.

Ueland was raised in a relatively progressive household; her father, an immigrant from Norway, was a prominent lawyer and judge. Her mother was a suffragette and served as the first president of the Minnesota League of Women Voters. Ueland would spend her life as a staunch feminist and is said to have lived by two rules: To tell the truth, and to not do anything she didn't want to.

Reviews

[Alisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't really put into words how much Brenda has meant to me. A true inspiration and a wonderfully full life. I admire her in so many ways and her book is just like her: quick-witted, practical and unassuming. If Brenda were alive today and knew how much I appreciated this book, she would be embarrassed and would probably say, "Ish!" to my sentimentality. But I'd like to think we'd also be fast friends and confidants and sharers of secrets. I will carry her spirit with me as I make my own writing journey.

[Meredith Kadet Sanderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think everybody should meet Ms. Ueland. She makes me feel so buoyant and vigorous. Ten stars!

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brenda Ueland is a great inspiration to me. The most “alive”person in every sense — spiritual, intellectual, physical. She strove always to be a better person and was not afraid of herself, her ability, her radiant light and wanted to share her natural inspiration with everyone. Thankful to have read her autobiography.

[Carolyn Jourdan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one interesting lady. Similar to Helen Luke in being a Wise Woman.

[Matt Nyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a kind of off the beaten track 1930s autobiography by the grandmother of the publisher of the Utne Reader. Ueland is a spectacular describer of the human condition, pointing out on nearly every page something that you have noticed, but then describing it exceedingly well. Reminds me of Tolstoy with all his describers. This is a book from a different time, archaic. I read it as it provides quite a lot of insight into 1900s-1930s Minneapolis, which is a specific interest for me.

Ueland spends a lot of time worried about her impact on the world, and it's interesting to watch an early 1900s feminist struggle against her time, and kind of end up accepting much about what happens to her as a personal flaw or a kind of failure on her part. But she knows that's not right, and strives constantly.

For me personally it is interesting to read her very elite perspective on Minneapolis at that time. This is a woman growing up on the lake in prosperous well connected family and she is able to see things from that perspective that I am certain my grandparents, and great grandparents, could not. Intellectuals, and elites, have TIME and PRIVILEGE to observe the world and pick up on trends and make observations that are useful.

Ueland also offers a philosophical perspective that I really appreciate. A derived form of Scandinavian stoicism, combined with an American striving ("make it all stream out of you so that the stream can become fuller and purer") and a kind of pioneer spirit. But then it all gets intellectualized as she goes East for college and meets all kinds of thinkers in Greenwich Village. In the 1920s it was still possible to meet the thinkers individually if you worked at it, and she hobnobs with several important figures somehow.

Great, if somehow obscure now, read. Easily worth your time as a quick alternative to whatever else you are reading.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. Her book “If You Want to Write” is my favorite book on the craft of writing. But this memoir was very tedious. She had some great ideas and insights, but the minutia was just downright boring in many parts. Also, she was most likely a homosexual but couldn’t write about it, or felt that she couldn’t. Very sad. I kind of couldn’t wait until it was done. So disappointed.

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly great memoir. Written almost 90 years ago, Ueland shows us just how much the world has changed, but how little we have. Her powers of introspection and self-examination are unmatched. And her ideas and observations are beautifully progressive. There is no who will not see themselves in her words.

[Tj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, historical read with some beautiful passages. Particularly interesting for Minnesotans, it has Little House on the Prairie vibes except delivered through the lens of the wealthy. Ueland was unconventional in her dress, thoughts, education, attitude on marriage, and social Justice issues, way ahead of her time.

[Kmacke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars mostly because I’ve read too many books written from the historically accurate but clueless perspective of wealthy white educated anglos (poor Brenda, having to repeatedly ask for and invariably receive money from her safety-net father).
Descriptions of Minneapolis of 100 years ago were fascinating though, as was her confidence to unabashedly push the boundaries of female identity.

[Cathie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a powerful, honest, inspiring read. Brenda gives me energy & motivation to be pure & unapologetic in my own authenticity.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brenda Ueland is a writer perhaps not well known outside of Minneapolis and Greenwich Village, the two locations where she spent much of her life. In this autobiography, she demonstrates that she is far ahead of her time (in the 1920s and '30s): She shocked the public by wearing shorts (shorts!) to downtown Minneapolis in the 1920s. She was indomitable: a feminist, suffragist, writer, writing teacher, a voluminous reader and an athlete who walked six miles every day, because she thought she was fat when she started. (Pictures of her available on Google give no hint of that, just a keen-eyed, thin woman.)

Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a progressive advocate of universal suffrage and other liberal causes. She grew up in a secular household, but after much thought, came to the conclusion that it was Christ or Nietzsche. After further consideration on her long walks, she decided that Christ won out. She developed a buoyant, idiosyncratic philosophy of Christianity, and became a forward-looking advocate for freedom of thought and equality. She wrote only two books, this one and If You Want to Write, which is still considered a classic among writing texts. I have already eagerly started the latter book, and I'm impressed by her encouragement of young writers and her insistence that one can only write from the truth, rather than writing for money or fame, whether you get your writing published or not.

She didn't write any other books, because she was afraid that they would turn out like "the most awful weasel vomit" and not be a contribution to readers. She had a prodigious vocabulary and wrote beautiful passages like this:

I ski home from beyond Kenwood. There is heavy going because there are no tracks across the lakes. On Lake of the Isles, there was that sunset. The sun is a rose-colored ball of quiet fire, and the low ceiling of clouds is lead gray, and broken softly like sheep, and each leaden scallop of dark gray is limned with rose-colored fire. When I am on Lake Calhoun, it grows darkling....

Although she was briefly married and had a daughter, she scorned the conventional marriage: "We argue about love, because I say I would never surrender my integrity, my proud solitude, never surrender and merge myself in the loathsome cozy way into the other person." "That is why I'm afraid of 'getting tied down by a love affair.' Because thereby I must forgo that delightful thing--arousing hope in others."

This is an excellent and inspiring book, beautifully written, with a complete absence of ego, which is rare in an autobiography. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to be inspired. This woman deserves a wider and elevated reputation.

[CarrieAnne · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an artist and woman, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have a short attention span, so it took me a while to finish the book, but Ueland's storytelling is inspirational and unique.

Libby Larsen's song cycle based on this book is also fascinating.

[Gay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read enough to know I didn't want to finish it. Good descriptions but not much else.

[AmyK · Rating 3 out of 5]

fair. slow at the end. not a lot of style, but the writer has an interesting personality.