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When I had the chance to interview Sherry Shahan, author of Purple Daze, for the Figment.com blog, I jumped on it. Figment is a website that gives young adult writers a place to experiment, write and share their stories with each other. It’s pretty cool, and you can join even if (like me) you aren’t quite a teenager anymore.
Purple Daze is a novel comprised of interconnected poems, letters and journal entries, and tells the story of six teens in an LA suburb throughout 1965. One of my favorite aspects is how she weaves the characters’ personal stories into the broader story of the year: Malcolm X’s assassination, race riots in LA, the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Rather than just contextualize the characters’ stories, it allows us to see how their experiences truly represent the time, and the difficulties young people faced coming of age in that era.
Since Figment is a site for writers, I based many of my questions around that theme. Some of them, though, also speak to the themes I often address on this blog: those of storytelling and how to put a story together. Many of the questions I asked about how she wrote the book, and in what order, didn’t make it into the final interview cut, so I’ve included them here. Please read the whole interview first over at Figment: Interview with Sherry Shahan.
Sherry Shahan Interview “Outtakes”:
Q: Which poem was the hardest to write?*
A: While cleaning out a closet I found a shoe box jammed with letters from a friend who was a Marine in Vietnam. I’d kept his letters more than 40 years. The character Phil in the novel evolved from them. Developing his story arc was quite painful, since I had to be inside his skin while during the living hell of Vietnam. Even now, after years of writing and revising, I have a hard time reading the poem about Phil’s friend getting shot.
Q: The easiest?
A: This haiku appears about three-quarters of the way into the novel. It’s from Cheryl’s perspective, after she learns that her boyfriend (Don) has had sex with her best friend:
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
I HATE DONALD DUCK
This was particularly gratifying to write since my boyfriend really did sleep with my best friend.
Q: Which poem was the most fun to write?
A: Downtown L.A. was burning (Watts Riots), Vietnam was raging, peaceful protesters were being attacked with billy clubs. At the same time, these kids had the pressure of high school, expectations of parents, and relationship issues. Amazingly enough, they still had an absolute blast. I wrote the rock concert poem while listening to Jefferson Airplane.
Q: Which poem did you write first?
A: I don’t remember which piece came first. I began by scribbling notes on a lined pad. Sketching characters and playing around with ideas. I sometimes wrote letters from the viewpoint of my characters. I let them ramble on and on. Later, I highlighted passages that showed insight into their innermost thoughts and feelings.
Q: Last?
A: The manuscript had been accepted by the editor when I found an article about Norman Morrison, a devout Quaker and father of three young children who set himself on fire in an act of self-sacrifice to protest the Vietnam War. I knew this had to go in the book.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
A: When I began I didn’t have a support group or know any other writers. Today it’s much easier to connect with like-minded people online. Check the local newspapers for events that include writers, such as poetry readings. They’re usually free and you’ll meet such interesting people. Writers are generous. We’re willing to share information, just ask.
*This question and answer did appear in the original interview, but I wanted to include it here for completeness.
For more information on Sherry and to check out her other books (she’s written more than 30!), visit www.SherryShahan.com.
Click the logo to go to Nanowrimo.org.
Each year I participate in National Novel Writing Month, a 30-day challenge in November in which participants write 50,000-word novels. In the past few years, I’ve noticed a rash of people writing Nano novels about people writing Nano novels.
I’ve not read any of these novels about novel writing, so I can’t offer any specific commentary. Still, I’m very interested in the fact that so many of them exist, especially because the opportunity for publishing a book like that seems quite slim, as it would only appeal to a very small portion of the population, and would open the door for potential lawsuits (I imagine, anyway, I’m no expert on that).
I don’t believe that people are writing these novels because they like metafiction or want to write metafictional novels; I think they’re writing them as a kind of real-life fan fiction. I do know at least one author who’s written a novel about Nanowrimo, and she is very aware of the metafictional qualities, so I’m certainly not suggesting these authors aren’t intelligent, simply that they have different motivations.
After the Night of Writing Dangerously last year (an annual banquet in which Nano fundraisers spend five hours writing and pigging out on yummy food), I formulated a hypothesis.
Nanowrimo has become a fandom.
- Authors at the event literally squealed when they met Nanowrimo founder Chris Baty.
- The Nano novel has become its own kind of book, separate and apart from other kinds of novels. It even has it’s own name.
- There are a ton of Nano-isms. The event has its own lexicon. (“Nano novel” being one of them.)
- Nano authors believe the outside world looks upon them as “crazy” and “insane,” a common feature of fandoms across the board. They take great pride in this.
- People have begun writing Nanowrimo fan fiction.
I’m a hardcore fangirl when it comes to Star Wars and Bones, and I used to be the one of the biggest Otaku you ever met, so I’m pretty good at recognizing fandom. And I think it’s awesome that a writing event has become a fandom.
That takes me back to the metafictional novels some authors are writing during Nanowrimo. As I said, I don’t think they’re purposefully writing metafiction. I think they are writing fan fiction, and the nature of the fandom means that by writing fan fiction, they are writing metafiction.
I don’t think metafictional fan fiction that is meta solely because of the nature of the fandom degrades the art of metafiction or in any way devalues it. On the contrary, I think it’s great that authors have found another way to use metafiction to comment on the storytelling process.
During college I wrote a paper on the “democratization” of fiction writing. National Novel Writing Month was my main example. Through this event, anyone can write fiction, and everyone is encouraged to do so. Then, with the internet (without which Nanowrimo would be more or less impossible), anyone can distribute her fiction. Suddenly, there are no more gatekeepers.
Without having read any of these metafictional fan fiction novels, I can only assume that all or most of them must and do offer commentary on the process of the democratization of fiction, because that is what the event itself does. And it’s super cool.
If any of you reading this have “published” your metafictional fan fiction books where I can easily get a copy, please leave me a link in the comments, and I will check it out!
Do you agree that Nanowrimo has become a fandom?
I wanted more and more to go on an adventure. My People played with me every day, but I was restless.
“Would you like to hear a story?” the Moon asked me one night.
“I’m tired tonight,” I replied. “My people took me to the park and I played with the other dogs and swam in the lake.”
I felt the Moon smile—a slightly warm feeling that only came over me after I’d done or said something that made her happy, and only if I could see her through the window.
“I’m glad you’re meeting new friends. Goodnight, Little Ruby.”
“G’night,” I woofed.
I was tired, but the truth was that I didn’t really want to talk to her. I was busy planning, and sometimes it felt as if she could read my mind. I wanted to keep my plan a secret.
The next morning, after my People left for work, I jumped out the open kitchen window. Once I was free, I sat down in front of my house and looked at it, not sure what I should do next. I hadn’t planned much farther than getting out.
I decided to make my way over to the dog park, since I knew the way. Usually on walks other people would comment on how pretty I was, or how big I was, but that day no one noticed me—I felt invisible. Normally those feelings would have made me sad, but today I was glad for going unnoticed.
Being outside without my People or a leash exhilarated me. I sniffed everything on the way to the park, and when I got there, sniffed and rolled around in the grass like I’d never been there before.
Photo by Kelly Lynn Thomas
I had the park to myself, so I chased every bird and squirrel I saw. In the middle of a chase, I heard music coming from far away. The sound of barking and meowing followed it. A strange scent came to me, also from far away, so I followed it, wondering where such a strange combination of scent and sound could come from.
As the scent grew stronger so did the noises. Almost out of nowhere, I stumbled over a large hole in the ground that hadn’t been there before. I put one paw into the opening, and the music grew louder. I put another paw in and again the volume increased.
My heart raced but curiosity drove me on into the tunnel. As I walked further and further in, both the smells and the noises got stronger. Now I could make out other dog, cat and animal smells, as well as something new, something I hadn’t ever smelled before.
After a minute of walking I found a poster pasted onto the tunnel’s dirt wall. It read “Corgo the Great: Magician Extraordinaire!” and showed a Corgi with a magic hat with eyes peeping out from the inside. The poster scared me a little, but I felt it was too late to turn back now. I had to prove my bravery and cleverness to the Moon, or she would never respect me.
I walked around another corner in the tunnel and suddenly it opened up into a huge theater. All sorts of dogs, cats, mice, squirrels, deer, birds, turkeys, moles and things I couldn’t identify filled row upon row upon row of seats, and all were stomping and barking and cheering at a spectacle on the stage at the front of the theater.
A Corgi in a black cape with a black top hat performed magic tricks on stage. I watched in awe as she cut a cat in half and then put him back together, and as she turned a long string of colorful handkerchiefs into live doves that fluttered away, cooing. The show so enthralled me that I didn’t even want to chase them.
I found a seat by two cats near the entrance. They must have been able to tell I was new to this, because one purred, “Is this your first time here?”
Alternating stripes of dark and light gray stretched across her back and tail, but her legs and face were white. The other cat was bigger and had black and brown stripes all over his body like a small, dirty tiger.
“Yes, I just found a hole in the ground and followed it here!” Even as I spoke I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage. Corgo had just pulled a volunteer up on stage and pulled a card, a coin and a cup out from behind her large dog ears.
“Ooo, the best part is coming up,” the tiger-striped cat said.
Corgo took a small bottle of glitter and threw all of it out into the air above the stage. She aimed her wand at the glitter and it froze in mid air. The crowd gasped. Then, the Corgi drew a stick figure human. She waved her wand at it again, said a few words that I couldn’t hear clearly, and the figure grew into a life-sized human man. My jaw hung open and I was too stunned to speak, but the room erupted in cheers.
“Oh, just wait,” said the first cat. “It gets even better. You’ll never believe what she does next.”
Corgo waved her wand again and the man started chasing her around the stage. He had a long stick with a loop of rope at the end. I’d never seen one before, but I knew right away it was meant for catching stray dogs. I could hear the man’s feet banging on the stage as he stalked Corgo, and my heart beat a little faster.
With each stomping footstep a little of the glitter that floated in midair fell to the stage floor. The man closed the gap between him and Corgo, until finally he had the magician cornered at the back of the stage. I was sure he was going to catch her, and had to keep myself from shouting out a warning. Suddenly she appeared behind the man. The crowd, including me, gasped again.
Corgo jumped up on the man’s back and used his head as a springboard to jump to a trapeze hanging above the stage. The man shouted in rage and surprise, and turned around in time to see Corgo leaping from the trapeze to another across the stage. The man ran below it, clearly without a plan. Corgo did a few mid-air flips and somehow her hat remained on her head.
She landed on top of a ladder at the other end of the stage and climbed down. I let a long breath out, not realizing I’d been holding it.
The man was waiting at the bottom with his dog catching rope, but Corgo didn’t walk into him like I feared she would. Instead, she took her wand, which had been tucked in her cape, and struck the end against the floor. A huge bouquet of flowers popped out of the end and flew straight up into the man’s face. The crowd laughed uproariously.
Corgo used the distraction to run under the man’s legs as he screamed in frustration once again. He recovered from the flowers quickly and caught up with Corgo in the middle of the stage. She stood on a raised platform, calmly looking out at the audience. The man began to creep up to her, thinking she didn’t see him. A wicked smirk on her face told us that she knew exactly what the man was doing.
Just as he was about to pounce on her, she leaped up, took off her hat in midair, and threw it down on top of the man. The hat landed squarely on his head, but it kept going down over his body until he completely disappeared within it! I barked in surprise and approval.
Corgo landed on all four paws, recovered her hat, and took a bow. The crowd erupted in noise. Everyone stamped, stomped, barked, meowed, chattered and yelled at Corgo’s amazing trick.
After her bow, she flipped her hat around so the audience could see inside—it was completely empty. She reached in, moved her paw around and came out empty handed. She shook it out on the stage, and nothing fell out of it.
The hat had swallowed the man entirely, which was even more amazing considering the small size of the hat and the large size of the man. I couldn’t believe it, and could feel how wide my eyes grew.
Then Corgo tapped the hat with her wand, reached in with her mouth and tugged. A different man’s head popped out, and he looked around bewildered. Corgo shook her head and shoved the human back into the hat. She tapped it again and repeated the motions. This time a woman’s head came out, and the crowd laughed. She shoved the woman back into the hat, tapped it again and once again reached in with her mouth.
This time the original man’s head appeared and Corgo waved her wand at the crowd, enticing applause for her trick. She pulled the rest of him out of the hat, but before he had the chance to start chasing her again, she tugged on his shirt sleeve and he collapsed into a giant white handkerchief.
The crowd went wild again, and I joined another dogs’ howls. Corgo took one last bow, placed her hat on her head and threw the giant white handkerchief over her head. It settled over her, but kept settling, until it lay flat on the stage floor—she had completely disappeared!
“Wow, that was absolutely amazing!” I said to the cats next to me.
“Every show is better than the one before it,” the tiger-stripped cat said.
The white and gray cat said, “Corgo always has the best tricks. I’m Cleo.” She preened at me a little as she spoke.
“And I’m Tony,” the stripped one added, rubbing up against my legs and purring.
“Uh,” I said, a little surprised. I’d never met a cat before, and wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish. “I’m Ruby. It’s…nice to meet you.”
“Well, Ruby, where are you headed off to now?” Tony asked.
“Home, I guess,” I responded. “My People will probably be home from work soon, and I don’t want them to worry about me.”
“I see,” said Cleo. Maybe I imagined it, but she sounded disapproving. “We can disappear for days at a time, and our People don’t mind at all. They give us catnip when we come back. They know it’s silly to think they can keep us cats locked up all the time. We need room to roam and hunt, but I guess dogs are different.”
“Dogs need room too,” I blurted. “That’s why I’m here. I was tired of being stuck in the house all the time.”
“That’s rare,” Cleo purred. “We’re going to go look for an adventure, but I guess you need to get home to your People, so we’ll see you later.”
The two cats waved goodbye and started walking away. At that moment I felt proud of myself for discovering such a wonderful place, but also like it wasn’t enough. I chased after them.
“Can I come with you?” I asked the cats.
Cleo shrugged, but Tony smiled at me. “That would be great! You can be our bodyguard!”
“Oh, will it be dangerous?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little scared.
“Nah, we’ve never run into trouble before, just with some nasty alley cats. But they’d never bother us if we’ve got a big, scary dog with us, right Cleo?”
Cleo purred her agreement. “Let’s go, then.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh, nowhere special. We’re just going to wander around the city and explore a little,” she said. Relief flowed through my body. I was okay with exploring, but the thought of going too far still scared me.
“Sounds like fun,” I said mostly to myself.
“This way!” Tony pointed at what I thought was the same tunnel I used to enter the theater.
Tony led the way, and we walked back out through the tunnel, past the same scary poster and up, up, up until finally I saw light ahead. When we came out of the tunnel, though, it was dark. I knew immediately something was wrong.
“Where are we?” I asked. “This isn’t the city at all. It shouldn’t be dark already.”
We looked around, and saw nothing but a meadow full of grass and wildflowers, scattered with a few trees, extending all around us into the darkness.
“Tony! You led us out the wrong tunnel!” Cleo meowed. She batted him in the face with her paw. “Goodness only knows where we are now, or how we’ll ever get back!”
A squirrel popped up out of the tall grass and startled all three of us, though we all tried to hide it from each other. “If you’re wondering where you are,” he said, “you’re in Lexiana’s Meadow, in the Kingdom of Wales.”
“Whales? Don’t Whales live in the ocean?” I asked.
The squirrel looked surprised and a little annoyed. “Not, the animal, you silly dog. The country. Wales? South of England? Across the Atlantic Ocean from North America? You must be from America if you’re so ignorant of geography.”
“Oh, lovely,” Cleo said.
Worry and panic filled my body. “We have to go back.”
“We can’t,” Tony said. “The entrance closes once you exit. We’ll have to wait until the next full moon to get back.”
I turned around and looked for the tunnel, but it was nowhere to be seen. I dug frantically at the spot it had been, but all I found was dirt and a few small rocks. I gave up, and let despair take over. “We have to wait a whole month?” I asked, panting heavily.
“That’s no way to talk about a royal country like Wales,” the squirrel cut in, puffing out his chest. “You should tour the country, enjoy your stay.”
Cleo eyed up the squirrel the way I imagined she eyed up her dinner. “You’re annoying,” she said right before she pounced on him.
Somehow he escaped her claws and bounded away into the meadow. None of us felt like giving chase, so instead we lay down in the grass near where the tunnel had been.
“Now what are we going to do?” I cried, feeling very little and very foolish, the Moon’s words of warning echoing around in my head, teasing me.
"Don Quixote" by Honore Daumier
Last week’s post talks about metafiction and what exactly it is. I argued that structures and constructions that use the story-within-the-story format are inherently metafictional because their simple existence provides commentary on the storytelling process.
Now it’s time to back up my claims! I’ll use Don Quixote as an example, because it features two of the more common story-in-story tropes.
In the second volume of Don Quixote (published about ten years after the first), the story within the story comments on Spanish society at the time, as well as defends the book against a “false” second volume released by one of Cervantes’ critics. It also draws attention to the fictional devices of the novel because the story within the story is, in fact, Don Quixote!
It’s pretty easy to see why that first trope is metafictional, so what about the second?
There’s another story within the story in the first book of the novel. “Cervantes” appears as a narrator, and delivers this tale as if it were a legend. He tells it to us in a rather conversational manner.
That first story within a story is interesting to look at, because although Cervantes appears as a character, he does not appear as a writer—in the novel he is collecting this legend and recounting it, but he is not writing it, although it is written down by an Arab historian, and he has it translated.
The fact that he has to have the legend translated by a friend does imply some form of writing, but that is overpowered by the way Cervantes recounts the story much the way one would share a story around a campfire. He draws attention to different “versions” of the story, and freely admits some things have been forgotten.
In this first book, Character-Cervantes becomes a storyteller, not a writer. And despite that, despite the fact that Cervantes does not go out of his way to shout “look at me, I’m writing a book about writing a book aren’t I so clever???” the first installment of Don Quixote does draw an incredible amount of attention to its own conventions without being obvious.
The story of Don Quixote, not the novel Don Quixote, makes fun of the Spanish obsession with novellas de caballaria, or novels about heroic knights. Author-Cervantes takes into account the way these stories are told and puts a twist on that when he tells his story, so the format/story frame does also comment on the novellas de caballaria.
Although there are two different levels of commentary in the first book, Cervantes could have achieved the same storytelling commentary had he made up another character (instead of using himself) to tell the story. Of course, Cervantes wanted to do much more than comment on storytelling.
The narrator, who speaks in first person, tells us the story of Don Quixote as if it were a legend, and brings in a proxy narrator in Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arab historian who’s recorded the entire “legend.”
So, if you take Cervantes out of that picture, I believe the way he tells the story, and brings in Benengeli (making it a book-within-a-book, or more appropriately, a-bunch-of-scrolls-within-a-book), does in fact still comment on the storytelling and writing process.
So what does it say?
It says that people change stories, either for their own purposes or because they forget. It says that society is fascinated with larger-than-life people, whether because they are great or because (as in this case) they are “crazy,” and by extension it shows us glimpses of our voyeuristic nature.
I see all story-within-story constructions as metafictional in this way, but I will concede that not everyone will. But, I, having an unhealthy obsession with metafiction and structure, am wont to go looking for metafiction in unusual places. I love stretching the boundaries of genre, metafiction being no exception.
What do you think? Are all stories-within-stories metafictional, does it depend on the story, or am I full of doggie doo? Leave a comment and let me know!
In order to fully discuss this novel, I’ve revealed certain things about the ending that you may not want to know if you’re planning on reading The Witch of Portobello—if so, I suggest you skip this entry.
As a modern Pagan, it’s absolutely wonderful to see a writer treating magic and the “supernatural” in such a…natural way. Paulo Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello speaks frankly about magic and its place in the world, and more importantly, accepts it.
The Witch Athena may be a troubled character, but her struggles and her art resonated deeply with me. To find a character that I could relate to on a spiritual level, well, that doesn’t happen very often, and this is a book I’ll come back to because of that.
One line in particular hit me right in the gut, both because like the character speaking I am a Witch, and because I am a writer as well, and it applies to both crafts.
“I’ve always forged my path with blood, tears and willpower, but last night, I realized I was going about it the wrong way. My dream doesn’t require that of me. I have only to surrender myself to it, and if I find I’m suffering, grit my teeth, because the suffering will pass” (210).
Sometimes writing is the hardest thing in the world, and sometimes being a Witch in a Christian country is the hardest thing in the world, but this will always remind me that without suffering, we cannot appreciate joy.
Aside from the very spiritual experience reading the book brings, Coelho (recognized as a master) does some interesting things with craft that interest me as a writer and as a lover of metafiction.
The structure of Witch naturally lends itself to metafiction without intending to. In the first paragraph of the novel, the speaker (who remains un-introduced until the end) draws attention to the structure. He says, “I soon abandoned the idea of writing a straight biography and decided the best approach would be simply to transcribe what people had told me” (1).
From that point on, the narrative dances back and forth between many different speakers, each speaker separated by a sub-head with his or her name. The side effect of such an obvious structure that calls attention to itself with each change in speaker is that the reader has to think about it—why is this person speaking here? What is the point of this section here?
That sort of thinking does add to the story, because readers enjoy putting puzzles together, and the disparate voices of the narrative do create a puzzle that slowly comes together as the book progresses.
But the real reason the metafictional aspects of this novel a side effect of the structure is that I don’t believe Coelho set out to write a novel that comments on its structure the way The Witch of Portobello does.
I do, however, believe that Witch could not have been written with a traditional narrative structure. In order to tell the story the way it needed to be told, Coelho needed all those different voices, and the reader needs to know who’s speaking immediately.
Athena is a character who inspires love and hate in equal measures among those who know her. Many of the characters that surround her state their relationship to her outright, which colors the reading of that character’s sections.
Perspective is integral to the narrative, because all are speaking to the narrator (although the effect is that they are speaking directly to the reader, as the narrator is present only in the beginning and end) after the death of Athena—another thing that colors the text.
Because of those two things, a traditional third person narrative with an omniscient third-person narrator simply would not work to tell the story as Coelho tells it.
Another reason the metafiction is only incidental is that the narrator, which turns out to be Athena’s boyfriend in Scotland Yard, pops up to explain the structure, and then pops up at the end to give the reader closure—he isn’t present anywhere else in the story, except as a sort of mythic figure that we aren’t even sure exists. He’s kind of there, and not important at all to the story.
I wish Coelho could have come up with a better frame for this novel, because the “murder” of Athena (which the boyfriend reveals is a farce so that Athena can disappear quietly) falls flat for me. I felt tricked by this revelation (as we’re told in the beginning Athena is murdered), and I don’t like to be tricked, not unless the reveal is damn good.
This one isn’t, in my opinion. It cheapens the emotional experiences of all the characters—and worse, the reader. After the novel’s epic events, we find out that our heroine winds up living a peaceful life. She’s essentially been put out to pasture. I say better for her to actually be brutally murdered, because then she becomes a sort of martyr, which in this case would have been incredibly powerful.
Regardless, The Witch of Portobello is an incredible work, and one I recommend to all, especially Pagans.
No one likes being lied to. Especially by a memoirist. If even one event in a memoir is made up, it makes the rest of the story suspect. In autobiographical fiction, though, it’s okay if the author “lies” to us, because we go into the reading experience expecting, well, fiction. Not real events.
Frey falsified parts of his memoir on addiction.
A January 25th article in The New Yorker by Daniel Mendelsohn discusses the topic of falsified memoirs (ala James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces). Mendelsohn brings up the truth vs. Truth argument that Tim O’Brien addresses in depth in The Things They Carried. (Read my entry on The Things They Carried here.) He concludes that even though a falsified memoir might convey a Truth, the lie is not justified—the author could have written a novel to convey the same Truth and wouldn’t have had to betray her reader.
I agree with him. When writing nonfiction, we need to tell the truth, while at the same time expressing some Truth. In fiction, we are under no such constraints.
Mendelsohn briefly discusses the blurring between reality and fiction toward the end of the article, and brings up Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair as two journalistic examples. That part of the article ties nicely into my musings on the difference between reality and fiction, and also brings up some interesting problems.
Specifically, how far is too far? James Frey obviously crosses the line, but what about “reconstructed” dialogue in a memoir? Or what about those scenes that you can’t quite remember exactly, but you think it might have gone something like this? I think answering those questions could take up another post entirely, so I’ll save my thoughts on that for another time.
While blurring the line between reality and truth doesn’t necessarily make a novel or other work metafictional, I think that most metafiction speaks to a sort of reality-within-a-reality, usually for some specific purpose (like to decry war as Vonnegut does in Slaughterhouse-Five). In other words, it creates a layered reality to convey some Truth. In that way at least, the two topics are closely related and create an interesting dialogue.
Falsified memoirs have no place in that dialogue. Although Frey had to add something into his introduction about how parts of the book never happened, it’s still looked at like a memoir, where The Things They Carried never was and is still not, despite its autobiographical content.
In my mind, Frey missed a wonderful opportunity. Had he written autobiographical fiction instead of a “memoir,” he could have used to opportunity to say what he wanted and needed to say about addiction in a much more powerful—and genuine—manner. Same goes for any falsified memoir.
Now, I’m not saying all memoirists should suddenly switch to writing O’Brien-style autobiographical fiction, but I am saying that anyone who wants to play around with reality vs. Truth should read O’Brien, because as of yet I’ve found no more masterfully executed discussions on the topic.
Although Mendelsohn argues that the word “reality” is being degraded by things like reality TV, I think books like O’Brien’s strengthen it. By blurring the line between reality and truth, I think it makes us think about reality in terms of what actually happened and what didn’t—we separate events from how we feel about them, and this allows us to better analyze both the events and feelings, and hopefully grow as people.
Of course, that doesn’t mean memoirists should lie about what happened in their lives.
In this guest post, D.J. Swank examines why the directors of Lost opted for a ridiculously meta-episode.
ZUKERMAN. You know, you don’t need to die. We can bring you back next season.
[…]
NIKKI. Look, I’m just a guest star, and we all know what happens to guest stars.
The above dialogue is taken from a scene in the episode titled “Exposé” from Season Three of Lost. Even though there are less-formulaic episodes elsewhere in the series, “Exposé” is perhaps the most unconventional. “Exposé” features Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), two characters only introduced in Season Three even though they are survivors of the crash who have been there all along; the plot of the episode contributes little to nothing to the season’s arc; the flashbacks feature some significant scenes from previous seasons with the new characters inserted somewhat obtrusively; and it is the one episode of the series in which the writers go out of their way to be meta.
Honestly, one must almost always go out of one’s way to be meta—it’s not often something that happens accidentally nor organically. What I mean is that this episode is simply the most meta. Other episodes feature characters (usually Hurley) taking on a sort of Greek chorus role and commenting on the action of the series itself and voicing or addressing questions the audience is no doubt wondering, but “Exposé” takes the meta-ness to another level.
The dialogue quoted earlier says a lot about both this episode in particular and the series as a whole. When Nikki says “we all know what happens to guest stars,” she is of course referring to her character’s demise on the fictional television series Exposé, but the audience knows this is indeed also a reference to Sanchez’s character’s demise on Lost. The writers use the device of the television series within the television series to comment on the very television series they are writing, and, more broadly, on television series in general—that’s meta.
Zukerman’s words—“we can bring you back next season”—ring especially true for Lost. In numerous Lost DVD episode commentaries you will hear the producers talk about how some characters appear far more after they’ve died than when they were alive, and “Exposé” is nothing less than a veritable cavalcade of dead characters. Guest star credits in this episode include Ian Somerhalder (Boone), Maggie Grace (Shannon), William Mapother (Ethan), and Daniel Roebuck (Arzt), all of whom play characters that died in previous seasons. Even though using dead characters in flashbacks and dream sequences is a staple of Lost and by no means unusual, the appearance of these four characters in “Exposé” is made significant by Zukerman’s words. Their presence contributes nothing to the plot or the arc or the story, but serves primarily to illustrate what Zukerman said at the beginning of the episode, to remind the audience that he wasn’t just talking about Exposé, he was talking about Lost, too.
There is one other aspect of this episode worth mentioning, and though it is a bit of a stretch, I think it just may be meta enough to warrant discussion. I can claim no ownership of this idea because it was posited by a good friend of mine with whom I watch Lost, though I will leave it to him to post a comment if he wishes to take credit. Yet another guest star of “Exposé” is none other than Billy Dee Williams, the only actor in the series ever to play himself, which in this meta-heavy episode is certainly a calculated move to use a recognizable figure to draw even more attention to the fact that this is an actor playing a role on a television show. Now here comes the stretch: Billy Dee Williams is best known for his role in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the latter of which has been modified so that Hayden Christensen appears as Anakin Skywalker at the end of the film, much to the chagrin of Star Wars fans everywhere. It is no mean coincidence, then, that the makers of “Exposé” chose to pull a George Lucas and superimpose Nikki and Paulo into scenes from previous seasons in the same episode that features the man forever to be remembered as Lando Calrissian. The nod is subtle, but it is a nod nonetheless, and it serves to reinforce the fictionality of the story by revealing how the story changes as it progresses, and how the story is not only written but subject to being rewritten should the writers or producers see fit.
In the DVD commentary for “Exposé,” one of the writers states that Nikki and Paulo were partly an effort by the Lost creative team to address fans’ curiosity regarding the rest of the forty-two survivors who aren’t featured as regular characters (and after Nikki and Paulo were introduced, fans immediately cried “Who cares about them? We want more Jack and Kate!”). Therefore, “Exposé” may be considered as a sort of treat for the fans—a little break from the action to show how the producers are listening to what the fans want, or just something fun to provide a little levity from all the kidnappings, torturings, and deep moral/ethical/philosophical issues that are addressed in the series. It’s an unconventional episode, and it’s not necessarily among the best of the season, even, but it’s an admirable effort by a smart group of writers who respect what they do and for whom they do it.
Illustration by Emily Love
Once I discovered the Moon liked telling stories, I started asking for them, and they became a nightly routine for me.
After saving me from a family that neglected me, my rescuer found me a new family that actually took care of me and gave me lots of pets and love. But the first night I spent with them was scary. I knew they cared about me, but I felt lonely and everything around me was unfamiliar.
“Moon?” I asked after the People fell asleep. She was the only other thing in the world I knew.
“Hello, little Ruby,” she replied.
I could barely see her out the window, but I could see her glow light up the dark outside.
“Would you like to hear another story?”
Somehow her voice floated through the window, even though it was closed and outside smells barely drifted through. I ruffed quietly, glad to have someone, anyone, to talk to.
“Then let me tell you the legend of Corgi-san, the old Japanese dog spirit who was often mistaken for a fox because of her red coat and fox-like markings.”
I sat down by the window, looking out at the moonlight in the People’s yard, even though I couldn’t see the Moon’s face.
“Corgi-san, who loved good food and especially eggs, liked to sneak into a particular inn outside the city of Edo. The inn sat on a main highway, so many travelers stopped in to refresh themselves on their long journeys into the capital.
“For Corgi-san, this meant many new opportunities to steal food each night. On most nights, she waited until the patrons were well and intoxicated, and then she would tip-toe in and use her long tongue to steal fried eggs off the top of all the patrons’ dishes until she’d eaten her fill. Her antics were well known among the inn’s proprietors, but no one had ever been able to catch her.
“One night, a samurai of some skill and renown who lived nearby came to the inn, as he was fond of the egg-topped soba noodles.
“Corgi-san had seen the samurai before and thought it would be a good challenge and good fun to steal food from him. When he’d turned to talk to a particularly pretty waitress, she shot out her long, pink tongue, wrapped it around the samurai’s egg and swallowed it whole.
“She thought she had gotten away with it and was ready to sneak back out, satisfied with the night, but the samurai drew his katana and pointed it right at her corner hiding place.
“‘I see you, Corgi-san, and your thievery is well known in this inn! It’s time you paid for all the eggs you’ve stolen from innocent travelers,’ the samurai declared.
“A wicked grin spread across Corgi-san’s face. Although she was accustomed to an easy life, she was a dog spirit, and rising to a challenge was in her nature.
“‘Only if you can catch me, Samurai-san!’ she barked.”
I’d forgotten all about my new People and strange surroundings. The Moon’s even voice calmed me the same way a Person could by gently petting my back. If I hadn’t been so interested in the story, I might have felt sleepy.
“With that,” the Moon continued, “Corgi-san leapt from the corner, farther than anyone would have guessed possible with her short legs. The samurai gave chase, and the inn’s patrons cheered him on. He deftly untied his horse outside the inn and hurried after the quickly retreating dog spirit.
“The samurai’s horse was strong and quick, and he caught up to the little dog spirit without problem. Looking back, she saw the samurai, now on her heels, draw his bow. She yelped and redoubled her efforts, feeling like she was in real trouble this time, but her best was not good enough.”
My legs twitched as the Moon told her story, I felt like I needed to run from the samurai too.
“The samurai aimed his shot and let his arrow fly. It hit Corgi-san’s back right leg, and she rolled off the road and into the brush. For a few moments, the samurai lost sight of her.
“When she emerged from the brush, she moved even faster than before. The samurai was surprised to see her carrying the arrow in her mouth; she seemed completely unharmed. He urged his horse on, and soon realized the dog spirit was headed straight for his house!
“As she approached the house, the samurai was even more surprised to see the arrow’s feathers burst into flames. He realized what the corgi was doing, but he couldn’t get his horse to run fast enough to catch up with her; she must have been moving with the aid of some magic.
“Corgi-san reached the house a good while before the samurai. She ran around it in a circle, letting the flaming arrow touch the wood, setting it ablaze. The samurai reached the house and stopped, his mouth agape.
“Once the dog spirit had done a full circle around the house, she disappeared back into the brush. As she disappeared, the samurai heard her say, ‘Your punishment didn’t match my crime. I only wanted something good to eat! Maybe you’ll think twice the next time you decide to exact your own judgment.
“Luckily for the samurai, his family was in the capital, because his house burned to ash. From that day on, he did think before he decided to pass judgment, and often erred on the side of mercy. Whenever he passed a shrine to the local gods, he always left a delicious treat in honor of Corgi-san.”
I laughed at the story and Corgi-san’s revenge. I realized how tense I’d been waiting for the end of the story, and that made me laugh even more. Suddenly, I became sleepy, and to this day I’m not sure if it was because of some Moon magic or if it was only because I used up all my energy listening to the story.
After I thanked the Moon, I curled up on the floor next to my sleeping People. Right before I fell asleep, I thought I heard the Moon say, “Goodnight, Ruby.”
Illustration by Emily Love
When you howl at the moon, the moon howls back.
I learned this after I first became sick and my People refused to give me medical care. There were rumors among my kind that the Moon kept our stories, that she listened when we called, and that she answered, but I’d never thought to test them.
My body burned with sickness and without the right medicine I grew sicker and sicker. I didn’t understand how sick I was, and I hid it because those two little ones needed someone to protect them, and I loved them. I thought that if I ignored the fire it would go away.
After a few moons, a Person came to take me away. Leaving my family hurt, and although my rescuer gave me a comfortable place to sleep and the care I needed, I was feeling sorry for myself.
The sickness should have killed me. But, the Moon told me a story the night my rescuer took me away from my old family, the night I let loose my first howl. That story, along with a new family who adopted me soon after, kept me going, kept me as healthy as I could be with my disease, now a permanent, slow-burning fire inside of me.
When my rescuer took me to her house, she took me out into her yard after the sun had long set. It was summer—June, I think—and the warm air smelled like rabbits and flowers. I wandered away from the Person, and when I crested a hill I noticed for the first time in my young life how big and round the Moon was.
The howl started in my toes as an urge to dig them into the soft dirt and feel it squish between my pads. It rose through my body and when it reached my stomach it became guttural, instinctual, a need. From there it moved into my lungs and grew into something with a mind of its own and tore through my throat and out my lips where it rose to meet the Moon in all her shining glory.
It felt wonderful, like that howl had been growing in me my whole life, like it had been holding me back, like letting to go had cured me. But I knew that it hadn’t.
Then, the Moon spoke to me.
“Little Ruby, since you have told me your story, I will tell you a new one.”
I cocked my head sideways and looked up at her. “Moon?” I asked. Her smooth voice surprised me. I knew I’d heard her speak, but the words floated by me like a breeze. Once they passed, they were gone, and nothing moved in to fill the space they’d left, because they hadn’t left any. It was as if they’d never been there.
I stared up at her, but the glowing orb in the sky didn’t change, and she still looked impossibly far away. I gave another short howl and then the midsummer wind plucked her words from the sky and carried them to me.
“Once, there was a Welsh Corgi dog who had no tail. She never had one, and did not know the difference until a child exclaimed, ‘He doesn’t have a tail yet!’ Aside from the indignity of being addressed as a boy, she was not sure what the child meant. Was she supposed to have a tail? She was still young herself, but she’d gotten along without a tail for this long.
“From then on she noticed that all the dogs she passed did have tails, even the new-born puppies. She felt self-conscious about her lack of tail now, and hoped the other dogs wouldn’t notice. But they did notice, perhaps because she made such an effort to hide it. A large bulldog asked her what happened to her tail, but rather than respond she hung her head and walked away.
“The Corgi grew shy and reserved, and kept to herself. She tried all she could think of to make her tail grow. She pulled on the spot where her tail should have been to see if it was stuck inside, but all she did was pull her hair out and give the other dogs cause to laugh at her bald spots. Then she tried attaching some bushy reeds to act as a surrogate tail, but that made the other dogs laugh even more.”
I stood rapt, looking up at the Moon as her sweet voice blew by my ears. Her words came at an even pace, but I knew that the story so far had taken less than a minute to tell. And all the while she told me the story, her visage didn’t change. I could see her face, but I wasn’t looking at anything more than a glowing white ball. But her words continued.
“A few weeks went by without the Corgi leaving her yard, and she grew more and more miserable. Now, if you have never met a Corgi, they are not the kind of dog to sit around and mope, and she finally couldn’t take her self-pity anymore. So one day, she sought out an old, wise sheepdog at the dog park.
“‘Sir?’ she asked. ‘Do you happen to know why I don’t have a tail?’ She looked away from him while she spoke.
“‘You don’t need a tail,’ the sheepdog said.
“‘But all the other dogs have tails. Is there someway I can get one?’ If dogs could blush, the little Corgi’s face would have been bright red.
“The sheepdog laughed. ‘No. You don’t need a silly tail. They get all tangled and give children something to pull on. Your ancestors herded cattle. The People removed your tails so that the cattle wouldn’t step on them and so you wouldn’t get burs caught in them. I don’t know if you’ve ever lain on a bur, but it hurts like a—well, it hurts.’
“His eyes sparkled with mischief, but the Corgi knew he told her the truth. Even so, she had it in her mind that she wanted a tail.
“‘That’s still not fair,’ she said. ‘All the other dogs make fun of me. And I do not herd cows. Or anything else.
“‘Fair doesn’t mean everyone gets the same,’ the sheepdog responded. ‘It means everyone gets what she needs.
“The Corgi wasn’t happy, but the sheepdog’s tone implied that he would not be coaxed into saying anything else on the matter. She thanked him and went back to her People. On their way home, she lost herself so thoroughly thinking about the sheepdog’s advice she didn’t notice another dog walking toward her until she bumped into him.
“‘Hey, shrimp, watch where you’re going!’ he said. His People pulled him back, but he continued looking down at the Corgi with disdain. ‘What happened to your tail?’ he snickered.
“The Corgi’s first reaction was to look away from the dog in shame, but she recalled the sheepdog’s words about her ancestors. ‘I don’t need a tail,’ she scoffed. ‘It would only get in my way.’
“She walked away from the bully with her nose in the air. If she would have looked back, she would have seen shock on his face. Once she was sure she was out of sight and sound, she let a wild grin spread across her muzzle.
“After that, she took pride in not having a tail and in the history of her ancestors. Her attitude surprised the other dogs, and they never bothered her about her tail again.”
The Moon looked the same, of course, but I thought she must be smiling.
“Did you like my story, Ruby?” she asked in her wind-voice.
I howled my thanks, and this time I was sure I heard her laugh.
Before either of us could say anything else, my rescuer ushered me inside for bed. It wasn’t fair that I’d gotten sick, but I certainly had everything I needed right here. I barked once more to let the Moon know I understood before my rescuer closed the door behind me.
