| Friday, April 27, 2007 2:00PM | | | | History and the Truth of Fiction | Posted By: Mindy Aloff
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| Tags: History, fact, truth, fiction, fact-checking, research | History and the Truth of Fiction
This remarkable and often poignant session, attended by some 85 people, was moderated by the Irish writer Colum McCann. Participating novelists were Arthur Japin (The Netherlands), Laila Lalami (Morocco), Imma Monso (Catalan; she is also a journalist), and Michael Wallner (Germany; he is also a screenwriter).
To introduce the session, Mr. McCann gave us three quotations. The first, by William Maxwell, the beloved novelist and distinguished fiction editor at William Shawn’s New Yorker, was drawn from Mr. Maxwell’s novel So Long, See You Tomorrow. The quote is substantial and my copy of this beautiful book is not available right now, so I can’t present it fully and accurately here, but it concludes with the sentence, “We lie with every breath we take.” It gives a gentle and lustrous license to memoirists to generate writing about the past without the anxiety produced by the constraints of fact-checked reporting. This and Mr. McCann’s third quote, from the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, which proposes that reality is as much a construct of the imagination as pure fantasy, were remembered and referred to, both directly and indirectly, by the panelists and also by individuals in the audience.
However, it was Mr. McCann’s second quote, tinged with Communist iconography, by the playwright Bertholt Brecht, that I found myself mulling over: “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” Brecht’s characteristic aggression and willfulness are not popular elements these days; however, his thought—a modernist proclamation that attempts to crush the ancient concept of art as mimesis—has a severe, absolutist integrity that competes with both the refinement and gentleness of Mr. Maxwell (cherished by nearly everyone who ever read him or met him) and with the practical observation of Professor Geertz. Brecht acknowledges something separate from individual, subjective experience, something that he calls “reality,” and when he says that artists can actively shape it, he seems to mean that they consciously set out to persuade readers to think of the past in a chosen fashion as well as to prepare us to act in a consciously chosen manner in the future. And although Brecht speaks of art as shaping reality—frighteningly shaping it, if one were to substitute the word “politics” or “government” for “art” in his sentence—he does not locate the impulse for artistic transformation in some ineluctable human process that cannot be evaluated or judged. Rather, he acknowledges that artists intend whatever revisionism they effect. He takes responsibility for that intention. For William Maxwell, another man of integrity, that responsibility went without saying; however, for the era we currently occupy, what goes without saying tends to vanish completely.
Each panelist was invited by Mr. McCann to read an excerpt from one of his or her books and to speak about it a little bit. Then the moderator orchestrated a discussion among the entire group on the topics of the fallibility of memory, the usefulness of research, the process of empathy between a writer and a subject, and the context in which the past is invoked novelistically. All but Ms Monso read in English. (Ms Monso’s autobiographical novel of her father has not yet been translated, and she was assisted, both in her reading and her spontaneous comments, by a fine translator whose name I didn’t catch.)
The readings ranged from a voicing of text (by Ms Lalami) to a polished, actorly performance, during which one could hear a pin drop (by Mr. Japin). In their subsequent comments, only Ms Lalami stood up for any distinction between art and reality—and its association with fact-checking as a sign of respect for the past as well as a foundation of imaginative reconstructions of it. A few quotations from the session:
“The characters [in my novel, about Moroccan immigrants who seek work in Europe] are imaginary, created from thin air. But the situations are utterly ordinary, everyday.” (Laila Lalami)
“In my latest book, all the facts are real. . . Some critics, journalists—I noted a certain discomfort when the novel came out, because I was to never talk about my own life. I go on saying that it’s a novel, [but] when interviewers came, I confessed that [it was based on facts]. I decided not to change any real fact. All of the story [about the death of her father] could be false. I wanted to be absolutely faithful to the truth. Yet, considering that this is a fiction book, what does it mean for me? I have chosen among real facts. The book is an interpretation of real facts. When I write for the newspapers, if there is something I don’t remember, I try to contact someone to tell me the date, to get real facts. In this book [about her father], I wanted to give my experience. . .so there was no point in checking each fact. I was thinking about what we would call fiction: a distillation of life. “ (Imma Monso)
[In response to Mr. McCann’s question about the existence of a line between fiction and nonfiction:] “One falls in love with [an historical figure] and researches the story. You find out that the reason you fell in love is that the person has something in common with you. You recognized something there. . . .It’s very possible to reinvent the truth. There’s a hiatus in the archives; something very wonderful happens, and you know you’re ready to start writing. What happened? I’m very aware that it’s my own voice [filling in the gap in documentation]; it’s a séance.” (Arthur Japin)
“There’s a distinction between fact and truth. The United States invaded Iraq: that’s an incontrovertible fact. The truth is more complex. . . .There’s a contract between a writer and a reader: when I say, ‘this is a work of fiction,’ it changes the way one reads it.” (Laila Lalami)
“The German word for ‘literary’ is ‘dichtung,’ which means nothing else than making things dense. For instance, Thomas Mann didn’t hesitate to use his own beloved grandchild to kill him in Dr. Faustus, because he needed to do so artistically.” (Michael Wallner)
“Maybe we can all be called ‘storytellers,’ whether we write fact or whether we write fiction. . . .[James Joyce’s] Ulysses takes place on June 16, 1904. Ulysses walks around Dublin. My grandfather walked those same streets. But Leopold Bloom means much more to me. Do you think that fiction writers might be the historians of the future?” (Colum McCann)
“I know my character so well that if you asked him any question, I know how he’d answer it. I look to novels for how things were in the past.” (Laila Lalami)
“Is there any sort of story a fiction writer should not go to? In Auschwitz, Mengele had a fascination for little people. He wrote plays for them. The only family who came out of Auschwitz as a family were them. And yet, the project [to write a novel on a family of dwarves in Auschwitz] totally died on me. I couldn’t [do it].” (Arthur Japin)
“In a political way, I go everywhere [as a novelist]. In Germany, we think it’s important not to forget. Sometimes, though, in personal things. . . .” (Michael Wallner)
“The biggest responsibility we have as writers is to be honest with the material. People’s lives are not product.” (Laila Lalami)
“Nobody ever acts out of pure maliciousness. That’s not interesting. Take the World Trade Center: [a novelist of our moment would need more distance] to understand why the people who did that needed to do that, to fall in love with them [sufficiently to make them subjects of a novel].” (Arthur Japin)
“My wife’s sister became an orthodox Jew in Israel. Her story was so strong that [my wife? sister-in-law?—difficult to hear] wanted to write it down, but she knew that it could hurt people [she discussed in the story]. So she traveled there [to Israel] and read the book to everyone who was in it.” (Michael Wallner)
“I have no responsibility to critics but to my characters. You [a writer] are driving to the point where you’re as brutally honest with yourself as you could be: that’s the hard part.” (Laila Lalami)
“It’s important to be tender with characters, with a certain ironical value.” (Imma Monso)
[In response to Mr. McCann’s question: “If you knew that what you were going to do {as a writer} was going to be dishonest and you followed through anyway, what would you do?:]
“My publisher asked for a happy ending [to his novel]. After what happened to that character, I couldn’t do it.” (Michael Wallner)
“You have this picture of your beloved [i.e., your protagonist]. As in true life, at some point you find they have done things you would not want to tell. Which is more important? To give a full picture of one I love or to sweep it under the carpet? I think the first is more important.” (Arthur Japin)
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