In Harper’s November issue, memoirist Joel Agee explores the idea of memory as art in an essay on memoir called “A Lie that Tells the Truth.” The title gives a good idea of Agee’s peregrinations in the essay. Names like Breton and Cocteau are invoked. The possible use of the “L”-word (literature, in this case) in a non-ironic fashion is discussed. Disparities between European genres and common American rubrics are observed.The essay does provide some stellar quotes…
On cultural prejudice against the illegal alien in creative nonfiction: An army of truth tellers has conquered large numbers of the dwindling faithful who still read books. Confession, in print and on TV, is fast becoming the primary public mode in which human interiority speaks and is heard. The self-avowed lies of fiction are no longer in fashion. Subjectivity and imagination, it seems, are slipping the border into the non-fiction columns, where they live as quasi-illegal aliens, poorly housed among the facts, performing thankless but necessary labors.
On the “L”-word: It amazes me that I am old enough now, and perhaps foreign enough, to remember a time and a place when people still used that word without an ironic or apologetic smile…. Read the rest of this entry »