For this week's prompt I am going to talk a little bit about hoaxes and about when I learned as a child the difference between fiction and nonfiction works.
The New Yorker article we had to read about was fascinating to me. I think the biggest takeaway I got from it is that people want to believe in the story that is in front of them. Some people will not care if the author is false and others will think it is the most appalling act to the literary world and the books should no longer be taken seriously. To those who are appalled I just have one question, do you not like the book because you found out the author is not who you wanted it to be? If a book can be read authentically by people and win awards then what is the big deal? Everyone reads certain books for a reason. I think with nonfiction work people forget that authors have to write something that draws them in and keeps readers wanting more. This means stories will be dramatized and possibly fictionalized.
For me, I think people, including myself, care too much about the person behind the book. I could even say this branches out to other industries like film. People have become fascinated with writers and creators of works and if the person does not live up to their expectations they can see the works in a different light. I am someone who will look up authors and actors/actresses to find out what their life stories are. I am not saying I don't hope they are slightly what I picture in my head. I also am one that cares more about what I think about the work that is being put before me than who created it. I want the story, not the person behind it. If it is an autobiography I look at it the same way I look at "reality" television. It cannot be completely true and unscripted. I do not see the big deal with the hoaxes of authors writing under different names. I say this because many beloved authors used/use pseudonyms to branch out from their known genre. Look at Nora Roberts for example. She writes under multiple names and where I work all her books get checked out. I think it is funny that the J.D. Robb books also have her real name on them and not just the pseudonym. Does anyone else laugh about that when they are in the stacks and come across her books?
As for why I feel the way I do. It all started with Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was obsessed with her as a child. So much so that I wore my hair in pigtails far too frequently (I still would if I could braid my own hair) and begged my parents to take me to her house, that is a museum, so I could see where she lived. For the record, I was never taken but will go there someday! I wanted to know everything about her. I read all the chapter books, watched the show, and would look up things about the other people in her life. Then when I got in later elementary school I realized that her books were fictional. I did not realize there was a difference as a small child between what she wrote about and what was real. I did not know that there were different genres because I was a kid that just read for pleasure and not to know the difference between fiction and nonfiction or fantasy and historical fiction. I assumed that it was all real because she used her own name in the books. Granted she did base some events on her real life but they were mostly fictional events. I was crushed for a while. She was my favorite author and I did not understand why Laura would do such a thing. I got over it pretty quickly, and much to my mother's disdain, continued to watch the show and read the books (many times). I take how I bounced back as a child with Laura Ingalls Wilder as the way I look at other works. I may care about who the author is but deep down I want a good story to read. I also never forgot the difference between fiction and nonfiction. Hoaxes are always going to be a thing. I might as well care about the story and if I think it was well written and a fun read then it does not matter who the author is or is not.
On a side note I found out in college that Laura Ingalls Wilder also had picture books. I accused my mom of purposefully hiding their existence when I went home. She laughed and never really told me why I was not told about the picture books. I went to the library, checked them all out, read them, and even did a report on a few for an English class in undergrad.
New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/literary-hoaxes-and-the-ethics-of-authorship
Hi Abby,
ReplyDeleteI totally identify with your experience with Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was obsessed in elementary and I think I’m still in denial that her books are fiction. I found the New Yorker article very interesting as well. I agree with you for the most part. If an author turns out to have a view I don’t agree with or a different real name, I can forget about that and still enjoy and connect with the book as I did before. For me, the problem comes when the author is pretending the book is written from his or her own experience and is misrepresenting their background. When this happens I have a hard time viewing the work as authentically as I did before.
Great prompt response! I love how you tied it in to your love affair with Laura Ingalls Wilder - that emphasized your point perfectly!. Full points!
ReplyDeleteHi Abby!
ReplyDeleteI also thoroughly enjoyed the New Yorker article! You hit the nail on the head that “people want to believe in the story that is in front of them”, as you put it. I hate to admit that my guilty pleasure is reality TV, although, like you said, I cannot pretend to believe that the show is totally unscripted and authentic. I do think that the label is partly to blame, because that could be considered false advertisement. But then who wants to watch anything with a descriptor of something like “70 percent factual, 30 percent fictitious”? As a viewer, I would then be constantly wondering which scenes were real and which were not, which would ruin my experience altogether with enjoying the show. I think it’s interesting to note your experience as a child with Laura Ingalls Wilder, because it points out the trouble children have with sorting out fiction from nonfiction. Stories just seem so real that it takes awhile to learn that there is a difference between fiction and nonfiction, but even as adults, we would like to believe that the pleasant fake things can be real.
I think reality TV is everyone's guilty pleasure! It just draws us in and makes us intrigued enough to keep watching. I would definitely be in detective mode if a descriptor popped up like that! When I am watching movies based on true events I am always trying to figure out what was true. That would be the same case for books. I think you make a great point about children! Thank you for the comment.
DeleteI also loved the New Yorker article! I think it can feel like a betrayal when your expectations about something are shown to be faulty. For me though, I try not to think too hard about if a memoir is fully true or not if it sheds light on a situation, injustice, or hardship. I recently read a fiction book about teenagers who grew up in foster care and the complexity of that situation, were exposed to the drug trade, and also dealt with many different kinds of mental health issues. This book was fiction, but how the characters reacted to each situation provided readers with a hard look at the suffering of people in our society but without the author having any personal experience. It still made me think about issues I did not usually contemplate and forced me to empathize with fictional characters that represent real individuals in our American society. The story is not true but the essence of the message was powerful. I think being fooled as a reader when you think you are getting completely true facts can be really hard, but if you learned something, if it is rooted in truth about an issue, and if it prompted you to be a better person or have more empathy, I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. It is not fun to be lied to or misled, but books are powerful and the message should be taken into consideration before writing off an author. They simply may have wanted to help shed light on an issue they are passionate about.
ReplyDeleteI love your response and reasoning behind looking at memoirs! I think the message of the story is very important. Shedding light on a situation or letting people know what it feels like to have mental health issues is something many people want to be able to understand. More and more people are learning they have a health issue or they learned about something in the foster care system and want to read up on the topic. They want to be informed. If the message is accurate is it bad that it is not based on someone's life? I think it all depends on who is reading it and sometimes the situation matters. I don't really like when people lie about things but not all true stories are real. People forget details or they spin up a story to make the book more interesting. We would not read a memoir if we thought the person was ordinary.
DeleteAbby,
DeleteI agree about not remembering all the details about events. Even events that were very important or memorable are not always completely clear. I know my brother and I remember the same events differently. Just today we had completely different memories of who was at a specific get together that we were both at. It really does depend.