[bksvol-discuss] Re: My novel is finished!!!!
- From: "Chris Hofstader" <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 08:36:17 -0400
I beg to differ. "In Cold Blood," "The Executioners Song," "Hell's Angels"
and Joan Didion's "Salvador" are all usually considered non-fiction and
sometimes even journalism.
The difference between "historical fiction" and either the new journalism,
creative non-fiction or non-fiction novel is poorly defined in the
intellectual community. Post-modernists like "non-fiction novel" as it
explains how facts mixed with fiction can deliver a greater truth.
Traditionalists prefer "historical novel" or something similar as they, like
you, do not accept the migration of the word "novel" to a different
definition. Saul Bellow, another of the greats who died relatively
recently, argued for creative non-fiction and promoted it in the relatively
new journal he started at Boston University about a decade ago.
Oddly, all of the heroes of the form, whatever you call it, actually
preferred "new journalists" or, in Thompson's case, "gonzo journalist" as
none of them were terribly enamored with any of the labels that emerged from
the prosodic aspects of their work.
The real controversies come when one tries to debate where Alan Ginsberg's
and the works of other poets of the latter half of the twentieth century
poetry fall on the fiction/non-fiction scale. While they contain many deep
internal truths they tent to only be described as poetry with no adjective
attached as poets can't be bothered with such debates over criticism.
Have fun,
cdh
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Amy Goldring
Tajalli
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 8:59 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: My novel is finished!!!!
Chris,
Forgive me for being a strickler [stickler + strict] - based on your
premise, the fact that Lewis Carroll can combine words like this means that
I should also be able to do so. If you look up any of the books you sited in
your local library's card catalog, or check their category in the Library
of Congress, I feel certain that they will be categorized as fiction; not
history or non-fiction.
If you want to see musical drama based completely on history, I refer you to
1776 which has a source for every word in the play though they are not
shown in the footnotes. I take the authors' word for it that they found each
and every statement in historical texts though not necessarily in the exact
context but in contexts with the same meaning.
Every word in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats is taken from published poetry or
letters or, in a few unpubl ished letters or texts of T.S. Eliot which is
why there is usually no lyricist listed other than Eliot. Even Webber did
not have the audacity to put his name as lyricist or attempt to imitate the
master of such brilliant poetry.
Whatever Hunter and Keroac and others call their work, it is still
classified as fiction, just as Gabriel Garcia Maquez's "magical realism" of
Love in the Time of Cholera and 1000 Years of Solitude are novels. The
authors are describing their intentions and style, not an objective
classification of what they succeeded in writing. I know I sound pedantic
and I am probably being so but we need to be able to classify books by some
objective form so readers can find what they are looking for and what they
are reading. Even Sozhentsyn called his One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denysovitch a novel even though it was based on autobio graphi cal
information. Whenever you change from absolutely factual material you cease
to be writing non-fiction or history. I can call my cat a dog but that does
not change him into a dog.
Amy
----------- Original message from "Chris Hofstader" <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
--------------
The non-fiction novel was sort of invented by Jack Kerouac in "On the Road"
where he mingled factual experiences that he and his gang had enjoyed while
mixing in purely fictional events, characters and scenes that never really
happened. This sort of blend, in a post-modernist way, allowed truth to
emerge from beyond the facts. For reasons that are well documented,
Kerouac's career as a writer was cut short and he published very little of
merit after his single masterpiece.
Hunter Thompson, back in the fifties, started experimenting with the form
and is thought of as the father of the movement. With his "Hell's Angels"
he inserted himself into what had been intended to be a journalistic work,
breaking the rules of journalism by removing objectivity altogether. His
"Fear and loathing in Las Vegas took the form even further and put truth
well ahead of facts or reality.
Authors who soon followed and were highly informed by Thompson include Joan
Didion, Truman Capote ("In Cold Blood" being an excellent example of the
form), Norman Mailer who changed a lot in the sixties, Tom Wolfe, Dom
DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and lots of others.
It's an interesting but dangerous form as one needs to be very careful with
the balance of factual and fantasy and the writer needs to understand the
limits of truth exposed outside of the facts.
It's also a fun form as you can add dialogue and drug induced perceptions as
if they were real but one needs to be careful that they remember that the
character(s) that are based on themselves are, in at least some part, not
really them or else an identity crisis will emerge.
There's a pretty good and fairly recent book called "The New Journalism:
Thompson, Capote, Didion and Wolfe" I can't recall the author's name but it
explains this movement very well.
cdh
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Amy Goldring
Tajalli
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 5:43 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: My novel is finished!!!!
Chris,
Other than being an oxymoron, what is a non-fiction novel??? Using such a
term to a writer named Hawthorne - Shame.
Amy
oms,
-------------- Original message from "Chris Hofstader" <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
--------------
Congratulations!! I have about a half dozen non-fiction novels in various
stages of incompletion and find it very difficult to focus and drive one
home.
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nan Hawthorne
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 6:41 PM
To: 21 Acres Yahooghroup; bls-vol-discusws; Historical Novel Society;
HNS-PS; IAG Members; selfpublishedHF; ST-advisory
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] My novel is finished!!!!
I will be uploading it to the publisher in the next few days.
Let's see.. it just took me 27 months...
I will keep you posted on when it is available. Probably late summer, will
be on Amazon.
An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England
By Nan Hawthorne
His father dead at a usurper's hands, the new young king must prove himself
in spite of his own self-doubt. Through years of setbacks and misfortunes,
he struggles on, while his queen, the love of his life, is relentlessly
pursued by a dark sensual mercenary.
http://crislicland.blogsspot.com
--
Cordially,
Nan Hawthorne, co-owner
medieval-novels.com (tm)
Your source for novels set between 500-1600 AD all over the world.
http://www.medieval-novels.com
Authors! List your books!
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