Comments on ""Better because it's true"" - Faerye Net

re: and forget about claiming poetry isn't non-fiction...

2008-07-05T12:11:51+00:00

Well, you can console yourself with the fact that plays are also ‘nonfiction’ :p

In my book collection, there is a separate area for poetry, and plays are mixed willy-nilly with fiction. I’m a rebel!

re: Phooey on 'em.

2008-07-05T12:10:45+00:00

You raise an interesting point:

If fiction were inferior would there be so many people hungrily devouring it daily in an attempt to escape reality? And if that weren’t proof enough, the relative sizes of the fiction vs. nonfiction areas of any bookstore should give testament to which sort of writing the public prefers!

Well, actually, I misspeak – these are two points. As to the second, I’m not so sure. the fiction versus nonfiction sections represent the amount of historical success the bookstore chooses to commemorate, and nonfiction includes many, many separate sections if we’re talking generally, rather than just about memoir. I should look up some stats to confirm my impression that memoir currently sells more copies than, at least, literary novel.

But as to the first question: you’ve brought up the reader’s motive, which is one of the next points in the topic (which I’ve chosen to tag ‘memoir versus novel cage match’) I mean to address. Is the quality of a book, or of a class of books, partly in the motives of the readers who read them? Or only if those motives are answered? What of the author’s motive?

And the author’s motive affects your first paragraph. To assume memoirists are failed novelists requires that the motives be similar. Say, to tell a story people will read, to sell a book, what have you. But it seems to me that many memoirists are motivated to write by the things they’ve experienced, or in another specifically non-fiction vein of inspiration.

I’ll return to some of this later. I’m trying to write small, coherent blog posts these days instead of giant ramblefests ;)

re: genre

2008-07-05T11:57:42+00:00

To be honest, Emily, I fear theory. Not that I don’t sometimes get a lot out of it; “Critical Theory” gave me just enough understanding to live in fear. I know it’s unfair, as I like analyzing literature, and I really should get the heck over it.

How derived is this Bawarshi, before I add it to my ‘to-read’ shelf? Will a really dusty knowledge of Eagleton and the boys suffice me?

and forget about claiming poetry isn't non-fiction...

2008-07-05T09:29:17+00:00

Poetry is classified as non-fiction. So it must be true! Arghhhhh

Phooey on 'em.

2008-07-05T01:29:29+00:00

She’s obviously of the same ilk as those in the art world who scoff at realism. I’ve long suspected that it’s a skewed mindset deviously promoted by so-called “artists” who don’t possess the talent necessary to paint accurate depictions of life. Apparently the conspiracy also includes authors too unimaginative to write stories that didn’t happen!

If fiction were inferior would there be so many people hungrily devouring it daily in an attempt to escape reality? And if that weren’t proof enough, the relative sizes of the fiction vs. nonfiction areas of any bookstore should give testament to which sort of writing the public prefers!

genre

2008-07-04T23:55:23+00:00

If you’re into any theory at all, you might be interested in (or knowledgeable about) Anis Bawarshi’s work on genre and uptake. I can’t remember the name of the article I read last semester that talked about fiction, memoirs, and one of the funny genres in between (whose name escapes me) in which the author takes a lot of people’s stories and weaves them together, fictionalizing that all of the pertinent events happened to the same person. Okay, Bawarshi doesn’t go into the American fascination with memoirs and their shock and horror when these in-between genres turn out to be “lies” to them… but it had our class thinking about it. For me, writing nonfiction is a hell of a lot easier than fiction. Good fiction is difficult and beautiful. And some nonfiction is just masturbatory. Amen.