What is the author's tone in the memoir, Stay True?

Hsu’s tone shifts, changes, and modulates throughout Stay True, depending, in part, on his own temporal position. When Hsu directly describes a memory of his time at the University of California, Berkeley, his tone is often self-consciously snobby and even arrogant. He admits, for example, that he “began sorting [his] classmates according to their musical sensibilities” (39). In moments of retrospection, as he considers and analyzes his time in college, Hsu adopts a wiser and more contemplative tone. He searches through his own memories, seeking to glean insights into the nature of youth, friendship, art, society, race, and his own self. His changing, alternating tone thus mirrors the process of aging and maturation itself.