About a month into the semester, we have all learned to look more skeptically at autobiography. I mean, after all, just because I write something about myself does not mean that my story is more trustworthy. But students, and readers in general, still place great emphasis on the authority of participation: though a narrative constructed by someone who was actually there still may give only one perspective on events. After four weeks of lectures, I am comfortable that we are making the right distinctions between "fact" (those external things that are verifiable) and "truth" (those subjective perspectives that hold together any life story). What is interesting is how persistent students' interest is in verifying fact: was this really there in the 1920s? do we know if so-and-so did this with someone else? If that is all there is in the reading of autobiography, literary criticism becomes some exercise in extended fact-checking.
Of course, though necessary, verifying fact is the least interesting of the readers' tasks. For example, we have been able to demonstrate how particular authors may have significant investment in creating in their audience a certain perception. Gertrude Stein, in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), wants to portray herself as the doyenne of the Parisian art scene. We do not mean to suggest that Stein is not being "truthful" in telling her story about supporting struggling painters before they were famous; rather, it is that her "truth" must be read in full consideration of what she has invested in being believed. Ironically, the furor over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces (2003) seems to have put readers on guard. But it is nearly four years since Oprah Winfrey felt betrayed by the author's exaggerations and fabrications. Can we, as teachers, rely forever on this one very public demonstration of unreliability?
What has really surprised me thus far is how, persistently, students maintain their unquestioned trust in the "I" of non-fiction essays. From the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson to the humor of David Sedaris, students still show evidence of trusting everything these folks say without interrogation. So, to recap: I cannot trust a first-person "I" in a novel because this is fiction; I cannot trust a first-person "I" in autobiography because I accept that this person might have an investment in our accepting a subjective view of events; I can, however, believe everything a humorist writes about himself?
I love Sedaris, and my using him as an example is an illustration only of how well I know and respect his work. But it surely should cross our minds that humor, relying on exaggeration and juxtaposition, demonstrates discursive manipulation at least as readily as does autobiography.
This is, by far, the most interesting development of the semester, and I am at a loss to explain it.
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