Book #4 Project: Bennington College vs. Hampden College in The Secret History

Blog Post #5: Truth in Memoir

A book has to be almost completely true in order to be labeled nonfiction. Of course there can be allowances for discrepancies in memory, as Pulitzer Prize-nominated essayist Laila Lalami told the Los Angeles Review of Books (particularly regarding dialogue), but nonfiction by its very definition is the opposite of fiction: fact. There are methods by which an author can smoothly and ethically combine well-remembered, concrete events with extrapolated, improvised details: novelist Paul Mandelbaum cited Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior as an example, as she placed disclaimers on specific scenes and events in her novel at which she wasn’t present, warning the reader that some elements in this segments might have been fictitious since she had to fill in the gaps. If “gap-filling” becomes necessary for a memoirist, these notes are a perfect solution in order to maintain fluidity, accuracy, and morality as a writer. Half-truths are not okay if they make a “good” story because quality evaluations are again a matter of opinion, not fact. By this contention, the half-truths may be considered “okay” by a fan of the work and despicable by a critic of it. Opinion is malleable, but I agree with novelist Seth Greenland in that the idea of reality being malleable (as evidenced by the public’s argument regarding truth in memoir) is an alarming trait of our current age. We need lines between genres to extinguish that concept that reality is malleable; to establish fiction as wonderful (yet impossible) fantasy and exalt the truly epic memoirs that spotlight real heroes in our world. When memoirists sell lies, they run the risk of discrediting those with actual astounding stories that need to be heard and need to inspire millions of readers. We also need genre boundaries to streamline the reading selection process as well as create effective book marketing strategies.

Book 3 Listicle

Why The Metamorphosis is More Frightening than Station Eleven: To be clear, Station Eleven depicts the collapse of humanity, with the fictitious Georgia Flu decimating approximately 99 percent of the global population. The Metamorphosis documents the struggle of an indebted traveling salesman who wakes up one morning as an insect. Although many would prefer the latter, considering that a majority of humanity would be spared, practically, I favor Station Eleven, because at least one could still feel connected with humanity.

1) Gregor couldn’t communicate with his friends and family. He only makes garbled, inhuman noises; his speech was described as “an animal’s voice” (20). Gregor’s attempt to connect to his brethren in the midst of his suffering is futile. It is often misinterpreted as aggression, causing his loved ones to mistakenly fear him and lash out at him. At least people retain their communicative abilities with the outbreak of the Georgia Flu. 2) Our existence is defined by our possessions. Both novels assert this shallow truth. Since Gregor can no longer hold or grasp objects, he’s powerless when his mother and sister rearrange his furniture. Gregor clutches these items as final handholds on his humanity, questioning, “Was he really eager to let the warm room, comfortably furnished with pieces he had inherited, be turned into a cavern…[with a] quick and complete forgetting of his human past as well?” (54). The importance of objects is highlighted in Station Eleven with the Museum of Civilization, a gallery in which quotidian goods such as iPhones and credit cards are literally placed on pedestals. The apocalyptic Georgia Flu rendered such objects useless, but they still held sentimental value. If you were trapped in the body of an insect, you could no longer touch or manipulate these key items of your existence. 3) It’s hard to empathize with a cockroach. Especially if one is the only person to have ever inexplicably morphed into a cockroach. No one, not even Gregor’s family, knows how to approach the issue, and when his father realized he had tried to escape his bedroom, he was assuming that Gregor had committed some violent crime or other” (60). He then proceeded to go on a rampage against his own son, bludgeoning him with an apple that crippled him permanently. In the face of a global cataclysm, there is at least a sense of community. The survivors were united in their memories, and Kirsten, a protagonist of Station Eleven, “never entirely let go of the notion that if she reached far enough with her thoughts she might find someone waiting, that if two people were to cast their thoughts outward at the same moment they might somehow meet in the middle.” As the sole human-turned-insect, Gregor didn’t have that luxury. 4) You could still be an artist in the apocalypse. With a loss of manual and oral abilities comes a loss of the capacity to create. Gregor was limited to ruminating in his bedroom, whereas the Traveling Symphony in Station Eleven was a group of survivors that performed Shakespearean plays. Although one might expect that art would be discarded in such a state of desperation, the troupe runs on the mantra from Star Trek, “Because survival is insufficient,” painting it across their caravans. At least if one survives the apocalypse, they can feel the joy of generativity. 5) The world doesn’t stop for anyone. This may seem to be a trifle, but when Gregor, the breadwinner of the Samsa family, became incapacitated, his parents and sister still had to pick up the pieces, grinding away at menial labor. Thanks to the worldwide annihilation of the Georgia Flu, stressors such as student loan debt were stripped away (Tanya, the final girlfriend of protagonist Arthur Leander, was fretting over paying hers off the night of the outbreak). At least a global cataclysm would erase these petty problems! I’m being honest with this post. I’m demonstrating my selfishness. But I think it’s important to be truthful with ourselves, embracing our egocentricity as humans.