Reading Memoir as Fiction
January 15, 2016 § 5 Comments
The always thoughtful Richard Gilbert returns to Vivian Gornick’s now-classic Fierce Attachments to explore how genres differ and to reflect upon memoir’s peculiar appeal:
But would I be loving Fierce Attachments if it were fiction? If it had been written and sold as a novel? How much does my enjoyment owe to its labeling as nonfiction?
Let’s get something out of the way. Gornick once mentioned to a roomful of journalists that she invented in Fierce Attachments a street encounter she and her mother experienced. The reporters were soon baying at her, and the flap spread online. I can’t endorse what she did, but it hasn’t bothered me as her reader because her goal seems only to fully and honestly portray herself and mother. She might have handled her imagination differently, such as cued the reader, but instead she embroidered.
Still, try to read Fierce Attachments as a novel. Would I find it as absorbing? I kept asking.
Read Gilbert’s conclusions here.
[…] Source : Reading Memoir as Fiction […]
Memoir by its very nature is embellished because that is the way our minds remember events. Memories are seldom remembered exactly how they happened. Witnesses to a crime often recall conflicting details. Memoir might work best with the label “creative nonfiction” or I like “inspired by true events.”
I mean, what a complicated web we weave with our memories. Their essence arises from fact perhaps, but their stories are created by the mind of the “now.” kaye Linden
http://www.kayelinden.com
but if you’re making something up, let us know or we stop trusting you. it can be just a note–this is something that might have happened, and this is what our reactions would probably have been. easy to add. I don’t like to be fooled.
Reblogged this on Under the Birch Tree and commented:
Reposted from BREVITY
Reblogged this on Notes from An Alien and commented:
Totally fascinating re-blog………