Novelists who lie
September 4th, 2008 | by Ben Hoare |I’ve already touched on this when discussing Margaret Forster’s Diary of an Ordinary Woman, whose ‘Author’s Note’ tries to draw a line between the book’s factual origins and its fictional outcome.
Even more troublesome are those works which present themselves as novels, yet feature real historical figures.Like Forster’s novel, this one also features an ‘Author’s Note’ at the end, which explains:
If we unpick this paragraph, we find a number of statements:
- Sedgwick considers his book to be a work of fiction.
- The novel is nevertheless based on real, historical events.
- Sedgwick has consciously modified factual details in order to make a better story.
- He has also used his imagination to fill in gaps in his knowledge.
- He does not consider the work to be a biography.
It is points (3) and (4) that say the most. They both refer to fictional components of the narrative, but they suggest two different reasons for the fiction. In point (3), Sedgwick is admitting that, at times, he has deliberately told untruths, for the sake of the story. This reminds me of James Frey’s response to allegations of dishonesty in A Million Little Pieces: “I’m only interested in making good art by whatever means.” For Sedgwick and for Frey, then, the goal is to tell a good story, not to tell “the truth”.
In point (4), Sedgwick admits to doing what most biographers cannot help doing anyway: using his imagination as an occasional substitute for factual knowledge.
On this subject, I recommend John Worthen’s essay on ‘The Necessary Ignorance of a Biographer’, which discusses the way in which some biographers attempt to conceal their ignorance, making the facts available to them do more work so as to cover up the gaps in their knowledge. By asserting his book’s status as fiction, Sedgwick essentially dodges the culpability suffered by most biographers in this regard. Biographies have a responsibility to tell the truth, but in a novel, you can do what you like.
All of this reminds me of the question I keep on asking: why does it matter whether or not a story is factually true? One answer to this question is that a text’s claim to truth (or otherwise) plays an important part. People were offended by James Frey because A Million Little Pieces was presented as an autobiography, and - as we’ve seen - we bring to autobiographies an understanding that we’re going to read the truth. It’s OK for a novelist to make things up, but it’s a betrayal for an autobiographer to do so.
For me, Sedgwick hasn’t really escaped the issue at all. If anything, his ‘Author’s Note’ only highlights his own unease about the labels “fiction” and “biography” and the assumptions bound up with these terms.
