Dr. Talbot’s Comments (group member since Jan 23, 2012)

Dr. Talbot’s comments from the Truth in Nonfiction group.

My best friend, Tracy, and I have known each other since junior high, been best friends since senior year of high school. As is often the case with best friends, the respective boys and men (and boy-men and man-boys) we've loved or been with have often created much friction. Either one of us doesn't like the guy or the guy doesn't like one of us. When I began dating Kenny, Indie's father, he didn't like Tracy--at all. I like to think it's natural--that our loves and our friends are jealous of each other.

We were all camping along the Poudre River, Kenny, me, Tracy, Kenny's roommate (and now husband of ten years). We were zipping up our tent to go to sleep, and I started telling Kenny all the times that Tracy and I had camped through the years, how she took care of me--how she put my shoes near the zipper with a flashlight--told me if I needed to go out at night to pee that she had put those things there for me. I was just sleepily relating the story because I cannot camp without thinking of how Tracy taught me how to do it, and how, every year, when we camped at Bottomless Lakes in New Mexico, how we skipped rocks at dusk, something I love to do and have to do when I'm near water. Anyway, Tracy would roam the water, staring, finding the best, the flattest, thinnest rocks, and give them to me to skip. When I finished telling Kenny these two stories--the shoes/flashlight and the best rocks--he said, I'll never forget it, "Well, I like her more now. I may even love her for those things."

I like that our James has kept the focus on the text, especially following our class discussion on Tuesday. Let's save any conversation, comments about the controversy--Oprah, Smoking Gun, Frey-- for class and allow ourselves to focus on this question as it relates to the text as James Frey wrote it.

"Yes, I believed,--perhaps even still believe--that the writer should not be cramped by the possible consequences of her work. She has no duty to earthly accuracy or verisimilitude . . . . In her work, the writers is free of laws. But in her life . . . she is not free."

This passage is from Nicole Krauss's story, "The Young Painters," which appeared in the June 28, 2010 issue of THE NEW YORKER. Consider how Pam Houston has written an "explanation" for the "liberties" she has taken in her new "novel." (wow, that's a lot of air quotes)
Also, to clarify the issues raised by Houston's work and this "companion piece" (stop it, Dr. Talbot), you might read my review of CONTENTS MAY HAVE SHIFTED, a review which Houston herself has called "super smart" and "insightful." I have posted a link to the review on the class blog.

In other words, consider how Houston, Capote, Oates, Krakauer, Sedaris, and Frey are living their lives and writing about them and whether or not they seem "free" of laws--in the work and beyond it.

Lauren--can you clarify for me what prediction you are referring to in the last question you raise?

A reminder, also, that addicts in rehab refer to non-addicts as "Normals."

Excellent discussion-two points that stand out to me here beyond the conversation about identity. 1) John's observation that Lilly seems to be, at this point, James's replacement addiction. Let's follow this one. And 2) Maggie's note that some of the elements may be nothing more than literary. We've already discussed literary elements such as minimalism and Naturalism, why not symbolism or metaphor? Keep in mind--the disclaimer on the latest printing calls this "a work of literature." Something to think about--but read on--see you Thursday in class.

James looks, he watches, he stares. He stares at Lilly in the cafeteria, he stares at “her” in college, he stares at the mist. He looks outward, not inward. When James stares—it’s an escape--it stops time and the World. Just like the bird, James “is still there. Looking, seeking, searching, waiting. Sitting stiff and true” (189).

A few major steps in this section: James hugs Leonard (his first proactive, rather than reactive hug); James allows Lilly to come close (her breath, her kiss); James confesses his “first time,” which, as Lilly notes (accurately), “It says a lot about a Person” (209). And finally, he watches the blue sky—and like the mist—he wants to drink it, to have it fill him. This is a different “filling” than the drugs and the booze—this is a desire to fill himself with something good.

After Roy’s meltdown in the lounge, James can’t shake it, thinks, “The words I am not Roy are alive inside me” (183). I think here James hints at the truth— “The words I am not James are alive inside me,” because he has lost who he is, his name and his identity, through years of addiction. I keep going back to an early chapter, when James admits, “I don’t know anything. Where I am, why, what happened, how to escape. My name, my life” (11). Yet halfway through the book, James has admitted to being out of control, to listening to the stories of others, and to recognizing what is true and what is not true. Leonard’s story = true. Billy’s story = bullshit. The words that come from “experience and feeling” are the words James respects and deems true (195).

Toward the end of this section, James wonders, “Maybe I don’t know what is real anymore” (213). Now, he’s either watching Friends or Seinfeld, but I think he’s still speaking to truth versus fiction (ah, the irony)—the real people he knows who spend so much time in an Apartment are addicts with locked doors and guns in the closet. The television show is “supposedly very real” (213). Shortly thereafter, we listen in on James and Lilly’s call, noting that he does not tell her he misses her, too. Now, this is not a case of the stereotyptical reticent male—because we’ve seen James open up beautifully to a woman (in college), but I think what James realizes is that the futher away he gets from the booze and the drugs, the closer he gets to other people, the more real he becomes. And for an addict, to be the “real” you is frightening. First, who is that? Second, James hasn’t been his “real” self since ten or before. He’s not even close to being the real James, but he’s beginning to recognize what is real and what’s isn’t, but still able to admit he might not be clear on it just yet.

All this to argue that James is unable to look himself in the eye because then he might see his real self, and what if the idea he has of himself doesn’t match what’s in the mirror, the way the people he knows in apartments are nothing like the people on tv? I mean, take whatever color you want out of that 64 Crayola box—no fictional story in a coloring book is going to help him.

He has to “get real” first. Then he’ll be able to look at what that looks like.

At first I thought "oh, harsh" in reaction to "commit suicide," but Kelsey is right--it's the correct term--he would have killed himself; in fact, he had been killing himself already for years. Another great discussion prompt. See you all @ 9 am.

I don't want us to forget Caroline's secondary (though no less significant) prompt--"What does this truth or truths show you about yourself?" No personal writing, be it personal essay or memoir, can resonate unless there are universal connections with readers, so I encourage us to not neglect this difficult truth--how we see ourselves in this story.

Caroline--great start. You can never go wrong quoting Fitzgerald and especially when it's about drinking.

Fun prompt--can't wait to see all the responses.

Not a question, per se, but some thoughts for you to consider in your response to "Repeat After Me":

Famed essayist Joan Didion writes in the preface to her collection, SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM, "Writers are always selling somebody out." It's clear that Sedaris struggles with his role of writer (lecturer) versus member of a family, yet writers are always "[removing themselves] from the equation" in order to write (448). According to Sedaris, he "got out of" the film adaptation of ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY after having the conversation with his sister that is featured in "Repeat After Me."

Not a question, per se, but some thoughts for you to consider in your response to "Repeat After Me":

Famed essayist Joan Didion writes in the preface to her collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, "Writers are always selling somebody out." It's clear that Sedaris struggles with his role of writer (lecturer) versus member of a family, yet writers are always "[removing themselves] from the equation" in order to write (448). According to Sedaris, he "got out of" the film adaptation of Me Talk Pretty One Day after having the conversation with his sister that is featured in "Repeat After Me."

Everyone needs to think of a suitable punishment for Mallory for calling this book a novel. I'm waiting . . .

Oh, I like this question very much and the responses so far. Keep it up, everyone.

I told Maggie I'd e-mail Ryan Van Meter with the question: "Is Sedaris an influence?"

His reply:

"Yes, Sedaris probably is an influence, but not one I consciously
thought of when I was structuring the book, but I was aware of how his
essays simultaneously stand alone in earlier publications but lean on
each other in the whole collection. (To varying degrees, of course.
The French section of Me Talk Pretty achieves that a lot more, I'd
argue, than the first section; his latest collections feel more
miscellaneously collected, even though I think he's writing more
sophisticated stuff these days.) But I was reading Sedaris before I
knew that 1) what he was writing was called an essay 2) I wanted to
write essays. When I think about what he might have inspired in me
it's levity -- I think he's at his best when he writes a funny essay
about something dark and sad, like "Ashes" or "Loggerheads." And voice-- how much persona can do. We both write a lot about imposture.

I've heard the Sedaris comparison before -- and it's a total compliment."

Sherwood Anderson's opening story in WINESBURG, OHIO, "Hands," is about Wing Biddlebaum, a man who lives in isolation, a man who is escaping his past, a man who renames himself.

In that story, Anderson writes, "The story of Wing Biddlebaum is the story of hands." So in the spirit of such succinctness, please complete the following sentence: The story of Chris McCandless is the story of _______.

Offer a brief explication, integrating three (no more, no less) quotes to support your claim.

I appreciate Cassia's shift to the author and his role in the nonfiction, because sometimes these discussions lean toward judgment of subject (which has no place in literary analysis) rather than analysis of, say, the fiction/nonfiction borderlands in these works, the truth versus the Truth, the author's methods in creating a narrative out of a REAL life. Perhaps someone might take up why Krakauer inserts "his" chapter where he does. And why. And indeed, carry on with Cassia's prompt. A worthwhile discussion of chance/change considering that the text addresses freedom versus restraint, a prevalent theme in American literature. If you've already posted, you are welcome to post again and (re)visit some of these issues. Onward.

What is your first name, your last name (middle name)? And why? Due by class time on Thursday. Have fun "finding yourself."

Just a note here, guys. Form, in good literature, matches content, so it would make sense at this point that the reader is "searching" for Chris. We are, as Krakauer is doing at this point, putting clues together, following a trail, so to speak. Krakauer's allusion to the interjection is in the form of a later chapter in which he devotes attention to his own youth and how it connects with Chris's proclivities (sometimes I try not to let on what's coming, but in this case, it seems necessary). When we get there, we will talk about that interjection. Carry on--

Much to discuss here, indeed--you may choose to hit every question posed by Courtney or you may choose to focus on one (to create more variety in the thread). I really like the inclusion of bringing in a concept from another course, Courtney. Onward, everyone.