Polly wrote:
>Chris, I think what you say is very interesting, especially when you say
>that none of your poems is a reflection of yourself that you'd like to own;
>perhaps this is at the heart of what I think is a quite reasonable coyness
>on the part of writers who don't want to have the less pleasant parts of
>themselves commented on, and would prefer readers to think of these as pure
>creations. I'd argue that lies are just as much part of the self as more
>recognisable 'truths'; and the truth anyway is something much bigger than
>just what we can safely say is factually correct.
Truth has to my mind not much to do with facts, although of course they
often coincide. Often, more often than is admitted, they don't: or I
should perhaps say that a fact is often a boiled down reduction of a
truth, with the essential parts vapourised off. And therefore perhaps
more comfortable and less prone to contradiction.
There is a self created through writing, and that can be quite
disjunctive to the self one walks around in. Again, they may coincide:
but I have always thought it fairly dangerous to assume that they do, and
kind of impertinent: it shouldn't matter. Mimesis is a mirror which
distorts in extremely unpredictable ways. The conflation of the personal
self with a writerly self is extremely problematic: I have always assumed
they are not the same thing. My life, my self, is not an object, but a
poem is, and thus it can be treated more coldly, more distinterestedly,
perhaps. Maybe this is the root of the lie Chris is speaking of.
Years ago I read somewhere someone defining poetry as quite separate from
fiction, which is simply making things up. I wish I could remember what
that argument was! A difficult and tricky line to draw, I would think:
fiction has as much claim to truth as poetry does, and just as many
disclaimers. But something tugs when you read some things: I remember
reading Metamorphosis when I was a very unhappy 14-year-old (aren't we
all?) with a dreadful sick fascination: it was true, and I knew it was
true. It filled me with such horror I didn't read it again for more than
a decade. And how factually true is Beckett? Obviously his novels can't
be factually true. But again, watching Endgame, and reflecting on the
perverse lightness I felt after the performance, I thought what I felt
derived from an assurance that Beckett was not lying. But obviously
people don't live on their stumps in rubbish bins: and just as obviously,
they do.
Back to my burrow!
Best
Alison
Home Page: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/bronte/338
Masthead online: http://www.geocities.com/soho/studios/5662
Alison Croggon
PO Box 186
Newport VIC 3015
Australia
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