Over the holidays, some friends asked me if I was working on anything, and I confessed that I had just completed a novel. I said I would most likely continue working on it for a while, tinker with it, run it through another draft. But essentially, to my mind it was finished. Maybe. One never knows. I might have sipped my mineral water and mentioned Paul Valéry’s statement that “a work of art is never finished, but abandoned.”
Loved this one. Now I have to lay hands on Goodbye to Berlin. Meanwhile, the sentence below. I think you should devote an entire post to unpacking this for the likes of me. . . . especially re: autofiction, which to me still remains awfully vague.
I wonder what he would have made of creative nonfiction, in which writers inhabit the overlap between fiction and nonfiction, or autofiction, which is to fiction what Andy Warhol’s film of the Empire State Building is to cinema.
Ben Lerner, Sheila Heti, Karl Ove Knausgaard . . . maybe I'm missing something, but to me, they're writing old-fashioned autobiographical novels. Just using real names. I don't see that as justifying all the hoopla about a new genre: autofiction! Looks more like a marketing ploy to me. Clearly, I've grown jaundiced!
Many years ago my colleague Margaret Meek Spencer considered reading a complex enterprise with meaning as both the guide and the reward - she often talked about how "stories/books let us read ourselves." Perhaps that could be part of your answer. Margaret was referring to fiction. I believe it also applies to non-fiction! We bring what we know of the world to any text and make sense of it against that backdrop; we take from it what resonates personally. In that sense, there is no real boundary between fiction and documentary.
I think the question that perplexes and irritates writers, "What is your book about?" is not the question that most people are asking. When a non-writer asks, "What is your book about?" They want to know what genre it's in, when and where it's set, and a plot element or two. They aren't asking about what truth you're trying to convey with your fiction. The all too common exception is when the question comes from people whose brains are warped by ideological fervor and tribal consciousness. When they ask, "What is your book about?" they're looking to determine if you are in their faction of their tribe or whether you are the enemy.
Loved this one. Now I have to lay hands on Goodbye to Berlin. Meanwhile, the sentence below. I think you should devote an entire post to unpacking this for the likes of me. . . . especially re: autofiction, which to me still remains awfully vague.
I wonder what he would have made of creative nonfiction, in which writers inhabit the overlap between fiction and nonfiction, or autofiction, which is to fiction what Andy Warhol’s film of the Empire State Building is to cinema.
Ben Lerner, Sheila Heti, Karl Ove Knausgaard . . . maybe I'm missing something, but to me, they're writing old-fashioned autobiographical novels. Just using real names. I don't see that as justifying all the hoopla about a new genre: autofiction! Looks more like a marketing ploy to me. Clearly, I've grown jaundiced!
This latest is great from “your mind”, Wayne. The mini essays from the Grady substack are
reflective, quietly provocative and always, engaging. Kudos.
Cathy (wismer’
Well I can hardly wait to read. And yes yes yes .
Many years ago my colleague Margaret Meek Spencer considered reading a complex enterprise with meaning as both the guide and the reward - she often talked about how "stories/books let us read ourselves." Perhaps that could be part of your answer. Margaret was referring to fiction. I believe it also applies to non-fiction! We bring what we know of the world to any text and make sense of it against that backdrop; we take from it what resonates personally. In that sense, there is no real boundary between fiction and documentary.
I think the question that perplexes and irritates writers, "What is your book about?" is not the question that most people are asking. When a non-writer asks, "What is your book about?" They want to know what genre it's in, when and where it's set, and a plot element or two. They aren't asking about what truth you're trying to convey with your fiction. The all too common exception is when the question comes from people whose brains are warped by ideological fervor and tribal consciousness. When they ask, "What is your book about?" they're looking to determine if you are in their faction of their tribe or whether you are the enemy.
What a wonderful exploration! Here's to fudging as needed, and clarity, both.