Can we write about other people’s stories? There are these recurring waves of controversies in the past couple of years about what it means to put somebody into a book, or to adapt a real-life event or person into fiction — which, to be clear, is how we’ve written fiction for literally all of human history. It’s not just readers, but I’ve seen writers say this too, that it might not be appropriate to put a real-life event or person that isn’t you into a novel, which I think is bananas.
There is something about that conversation that I find horrifying. What is the purpose of fiction if not that; this act of borrowing, this act of translation, is literally our job. We have no other job. That is the thing that we do. And we’re serving ourselves in many ways, but we’re serving a truth with an asterisk next to it, which is a larger sort of sense of reality… I think of writing, and the creation of fiction especially, as a fundamentally amoral process, whether it’s 99% taken from life or it’s some different percentage or balance. Those things are all morally neutral.
Interview [The Guardian, 2 July 2022]
Use the link below to read the full 2022 interview with North American writers CARMEN MARIA MACHADO and OTTESSA MOSHFEGH:
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"...we’re serving a truth with an asterisk next to it, which is a larger sort of sense of reality… I think of writing, and the creation of fiction especially, as a fundamentally amoral process, whether it’s 99% taken from life or it’s some different percentage or balance. Those things are all morally neutral."
ReplyDeleteThis is an old argument denying any moral duty of the artist. But can "representation" ever be a perfectly transparent thing, or does the artist necessarily interpose themselves, at least by choosing what to represent and what to omit?
I tend to think the latter. Creation/representation involves making a conscious choice. It can be a "moral" or "amoral" choice, but the artist is still in the position of having to choose which, as you rightly suggest, is a form of indirectly (or directly?) interposing themselves into the work.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this thought-provoking comment. Your input is much appreciated.