Fiction or Memoir?

Some time ago I had a brief exchange with John in which he said that he found memoirs preferable to fiction. Reading Le Clézio reminded me of the benefits of memoirs, but it is still a thorny issue for me to decide what to read. The appeal of fiction is related to our innate attraction to stories, folklore and oral history, which all predate written language and contribute to the fabric of culture. Modern fiction performs some of those functions, but, whether in purely commercial or literary form, it now contains unrelated elements that divert it from some of those earlier purposes. In the simplest terms, fiction's appeal can lie in entertainment, information or aesthetics. Popular fiction consists mainly of the first two, and literary fiction, in theory at least, consists primarily of the third. A memoir could be any of the three, depending on who wrote it and how well it is written.

The problem with fiction is that once you've read enough of it it becomes increasingly less compelling for those who dislike repetition. For example, I have never read any works by Charles Dickens, and at this stage I'm not going to bother, because from what I can gather his novels are excessively sentimental; I'm sure I've already read better ones, and it would probably be torture for me to read Dickens now. Many adults lose interest in fiction and turn to nonfiction, which is more useful in most cases. Some readers like fiction for its information value, where the author knows a lot about a subject or has done extensive research on it. These readers find it more enjoyable to absorb information that way, but I would rather go straight to the sources in nonfiction and skip the extraneous when I'm curious about something. Under these conditions I am confined to aesthetic fiction, which tends to be the most contrived type. You're probably sick of hearing what I have to say on this topic, but the reason I go on about it is that it's my best hope if I'm going to read fiction at all. In general it suffers from deficiencies similar to those that I find in modern art. The works skew toward literary fashions and the pretense of whatever the leading critics, creative writing programs or publishers happen to considered meritorious at any given moment. What I have usually found is that I don't share their taste. Commercialism directly or indirectly places an upper limit on the quality of new fiction, and although literary fiction isn't as commercial as other types, the literary establishment, which is accountable to no one, has been falling down on its job for as long as I've been reading.

At first glance it appears that the reading of memoirs might avert some of these problems. However, there is still a minefield to contend with. These days a memoir is likely to meet the specific agenda of the author and relate to objectives that don't interest me at all. Politicians write them to promote their political careers. Businessmen write them to promote their business careers. Writers write them to promote their literary careers. Many people would be fine with rewriting their life story in order to make themselves appear more desirable than they actually are. Even so, though I haven't as of yet read many memoirs, I think that they have the potential to offer the kind of writing that would suit me best. That would be the writing of an author who has lived a little, has thoughtful observations to make, is articulate and isn't dull and unimaginative or constantly alluding to the works of others. This sounds simple enough, but I can't say that I've come across much writing that meets these criteria. Rousseau's Confessions is a favorite; I liked The African and an excerpt that I read from Julio Ramón Ribeyro. Technically Walden is a memoir, and I liked that. I could have done without Dreams from My Father. Otherwise I've read memoir-like fiction, which sometimes works, e.g. The Mandarins. But fiction lets the author off the hook through the mechanism of the fictive voice; when that is the only voice in a work the author may never be held accountable for misconceptions and untruths present there, which can conveniently be attributed to artistic license; elements within that fiction can be factually incorrect with impunity for the author. Depending on your point of view, an extended fiction can be construed as a lie. I would prefer writing in which the author says "I think that...," taking full responsibility for every word. Frustratingly for me, it is difficult to find honest first-person writing that has been written by someone who has genuine insights, whose motivation is not primarily financial or professional, and who possesses true eloquence. You are more likely to find it in nonfiction, where there is a basic accountability with respect to facts, but the price you pay for that is nonfiction's often impersonal, dry narrative, in which the technical nature of the writing makes it unpalatable at times.

My next reading project will be to identify suitable memoirs or autobiographies to read.