Opinion - News Analysis   

A different kind of truth

John Burnside

Good non-fiction needs more than just facts - it takes a degree of well-disciplined artifice.

IN SEPTEMBER 2005, American poet Sharon Olds wrote an open letter to Laura Bush, explaining why she would rather not read at a literary dinner hosted by her during the National Book Festival. It's an eloquent, wistful letter in which she admits being tempted by "the idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people"; nevertheless, she says: "I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you ... What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting `extraordinary rendition': flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us."

What makes this document powerful is, in part, its stylistic elegance, as it treads the fine line between political protest and the courtesy that any civilised human being owes to others, no matter how reprehensible their actions. Its effectiveness is enhanced, however, by the trust that a famously rigorous poet inspires; by the authority of one whose main pursuit is not money or fame but artistic integrity.

"I am a lie who always speaks the truth," said Jean Cocteau, speaking of the writer's craft. To go beyond mere facts, to record a true history that takes account of the unseen as well as the visible, Cocteau saw that the writer must create something that, on the face of it, is a fabrication. This is what art does; this is what any narrative must take into account if it is to succeed. The artifice is there for all to see, but is not the criteria by which a writer is judged: what matters is whether we accept the truth that Cocteau's "lie" reveals. If we do, authors can gain an authority that allows them to challenge dishonesty at the highest level.

A difficulty arises, however, when the author writes not about imagined worlds but about what seems to be fact. A non-fiction writer has to make a story that is both factually true and compelling, and sometimes "the facts" are sacrificed for the sake of a good yarn. We are all familiar with the plight of James Frey, whose A Million Little Pieces — supposedly a true account of his violent, drug-addled life of crime — was hailed on The Oprah Winfrey Show as a book "like nothing you've ever read before," only to be exposed a few months later, on the same show, as the deliberate deception of "millions of readers."

Unenviable fate

Mr. Frey appears to have suffered the unenviable fate of becoming a best-selling non-fiction writer who is despised for his dishonesty (even after his public humiliation his book is still in demand; current sales figures are close to 4 million). Whether or not the lies these and other writers are alleged to have told were attempts to tell a different kind of truth no one can say, but this isn't what matters when it comes to judging a book. What matters is how we respond. We have become a society of lazy readers, easily satisfied and easily duped, and to that extent we get the authors we deserve. Yet if we are to enjoy the privilege of living in a world where a poet can take a President's wife to task, we must seek out writers who are committed to a truth that cannot be verified, other than by the authority that comes of a devotion to language itself, and to the hard discipline of the imagination. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

(John Burnside is the author of A Lie About My Father.)

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Removing the distortions
Behind the Swedish verdict
Combating AIDS: Yunnan shows the way
A crisis and an opportunity in Sri Lanka
Language: for torture or communication?
Corrections and clarifications
A different kind of truth
Methane levels to rise again
Untrue
On madrasas
Mission admission
Versatility personified
"Globalisation will only work if the winners share with the losers"

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu