(8:59 AM) | Adam Kotsko:

Fiction: A Space for Discussion

I just discovered this post from Elizabeth. I had said:

Ralph [Luker], The Steven Glass comparison is interesting, though I don't know enough about the details of the story to say for sure. Would he have gotten any attention had he been up-front about its fictional nature? Would he have gotten into Rolling Stone or whatever? Would people have actually read it? My feeling is, No. I don't read the short stories in literary magazines anymore, and I don't see people really discussing them. Perhaps my feelings are part of a broader cultural shift -- we can hear lies all the time, effortlessly, but if we're going to do something so counter-cultural as reading a book, we want at least a modicum of truth.

Adam K - I only saw "Shattered Glass", so I'm far from an expert on Stephen Glass. I did take away from the film that it is harder and harder for journalism to stay "serious". Our media has become so sensationalized that Stephen Glass could provide TNR with stories full of lies until one person decided to research an article.

Even with this aspect of our culture, though, I find your last line confusing. If you want to simplify it like that, so that fiction is "lies", and non-fiction "truth", I think a large part of the reading population would disagree. I guess I can only speak for myself though. I choose to read fiction because the world becomes too much. Because I am surrounded by liars and cheats in the world (well, my political spectrum anyway), I prefer to retreat to a world of fiction. I don't find such escape in non-fiction. Non-fiction does interest me, but the stuff I choose to read tends to get me riled up. Of course, some fiction does that for me too.

I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss fiction as passe because it is "lies". I have found truths in certain works of fiction that never would have struck me in non-fiction.

Questions arise: Is it just a matter of having new tools to "get at" truths in different ways? Are there certain truths that are only accessible through fiction that are not accessible through philosophy, theology, poetry, whatever? And what does it mean if I tend to prefer fiction writers who seem to me to be like philosophers in some important respects (Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Jorge Luis Borges)? Am I missing another essential part of their work? Or what does it mean that I tend to prefer philosophers whose work is in some sense "literary" (Derrida with his puns, for instance)?

Beyond that, Adam Robinson wishes this conversation could continue, and so do I, so I offer up my big fat upgraded HaloScan account to all those who wish to discuss fiction. Feel free to ignore my stupid questions.

| permalink | Main Page