The Woman Warrior: Storytelling and structure

Vintage was not paying attention when they produced this book.  On the front, it reads “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts.”  Beneath the title it says, “Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.”

But guess what the back says?  “Fiction/Literature.”

Yes, a book that, on the front, is called “nonfiction” and “memoir” is meant to be shelved in the “fiction” section.  I found it in the biography section of Borders, where, in my opinion, it belongs (of course I love the memoir/fiction dichotomy here).

Maxine Hong Kingston’s beautiful and wonderful account of her childhood in California and her family’s dry cleaning place is not a traditional memoir, though it does contain the confessional quality of many.

Although there are parts that are clearly not “real” or never happened, the important part is that they are clearly fictional.  The “real life” parts of the book are no fuzzier than memory, and because of that, I think the book deserves to sit with other memoirs.

My favorite section, “White Tigers,” does not deal with Kingston’s life, but rather her childhood fantasy of becoming, quite literally, a woman warrior in ancient China and defending her village and family against invaders.  The language stuns and amazes, and at the end of the “chapter” I felt a profound sense of having lost something for it being over.

Other parts of the memoir deal with Kingston’s mother being a doctor in China and how she dealt with many evil ghosts, as well as an imagined situation in which her aunt arrives from China and has to face her husband, who has re-married in California and become a rich doctor.

While it is these “fantasies” that get The Woman Warrior pegged as “fiction,” it is these fantasies that make the story real for the reader.  Kingston shows the reader the reality of her family, but what child never indulges in fantasy?  What child has a realistic view of her family?

The ghost stories and half-remembered family memories convey the feeling and emotion of this family—something that tells the reader far more about their lives than mere facts ever could.  This is without a doubt a case of fiction being truer than truth.

Plus, in the sections that deal with ghosts and ghost stories, Kingston is primarily relaying stories that her mother told her, and she points that out.  In relaying these stories, Kingston is showing the reader what is important about storytelling—that it be a story worth telling, and a story with meaning.

Kingston doesn’t relate these ghost stories because they are “fun.”  She relates them because they show the reader the incredible difference between her mother’s life in China and her life in the United States.  They highlight cultural differences, and they show us what her mother lost in coming to this new country—magic.

The books’ nontraditional structure also fascinates me.  Kingston did not write traditional “chapters,” but rather five sections that could easily stand alone, but that accomplish much more together.

You could argue that the book is a collection of short stories, or you could argue it’s a complete book.  I think both are correct, and the first section, “No Name Woman,” was published elsewhere first.

The disjointed sections don’t really come together to tell one singular story.  Kingston peppers each section with family anecdotes among the ghost stories, and leaves it up to the reader to search out all the mundane details of her childhood and put them together, which makes the reading experience rewarding.

On a more personal note, although Woman Warrior doesn’t deal specifically with gender roles, Kingston elevates Woman in a beautiful, poignant way, and shows the reader Woman’s inner strengths and weaknesses.  I think every woman, especially women who love good stories, should read this book.

This is a text, that as I write my own ghost stories and memoir, I will return to again and again for inspiration.

Also, if you’re publishing a book, make sure your genres match on both covers!

Don’t forget to enter my Slaughterhouse-Five Book Giveaway! Details here.  You have until Friday to enter.

Cover me in meta

Recently I’ve seen not one, but two publication covers that devolve into an ever tinier spiral of meta-ness!  Both use the same format, but their goals and effects are wildly different.

It starts with an image of a person on the cover of a book or magazine. That person is also holding the book or magazine in the picture.  And the cover-in-the-cover version of that person is also holding the book or magazine!  And the cover-in-the-cover-in-the-cover person is also holding the book or magazine!  And… on and on it goes into infinity.

A memoir wrapped in meta

The first example of this format I saw at a local Barnes & Noble.  It was Kathy Griffin’s Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin. I don’t know anything about Griffin, and after reading the back cover it seemed to mostly contain celebrity-themed stories and gossip (not my cup of tea), so despite its alluring meta-cover I didn’t pick it up.

But of course, my first inclination when I see anything meta is to ask “Why?  What is this meta accomplishing?”

Since Griffin is a comedian, and the memoir is supposed to be funny, my best guess is that the cover designer thought it would be, well, funny.  As you can see, the cover photo depicts Griffin acting the part of Miss America, only her sash reads “Official Book Club Selection.”

Basically, she’s making fun of authors and things like Oprah’s Book Club.  The fact that she’s holding a copy of her own book, and showing it off as if it were a trophy or award reinforces the farce—and the comedy.

So why?  It’s funny!  And satirical.  And we all know satire is a meta (and comedian) forte.

Meta-preneur

The second example came to me in the mail.  Meta-by-mail—basically a dream come true for any meta aficionado.

Via Twitter, I got a free subscription to Star Lee Magazine, which is aimed at female entrepreneurs and mom-preneurs (yeah, I don’t like the term either, but is author-preneur any better?).  Lo and behold, Ms. Star Ladin, publisher of Star Lee Magazine, is all wrapped up in earth-toned silk, holding a copy of the latest issue of Star Lee, featuring its publisher all wrapped up in silk…etc.

Each issue of Star Lee is “themed.”  It focuses on a specific skill or characteristic meant to help you succeed “on your own terms.”  The theme for Vol. 1 Issue 2 is “Authentic You.”

In the premier issue of the magazine and in various email newsletters, Star Ladin has talked about her dream to create a community for heart-centered entrepreneurs, and a magazine to help them grow their businesses and their selves.

If that has been her dream (and this issue of the magazine focuses on authenticity), then it makes sense that Ladin would want to represent her “authentic” self as holding a copy of the magazine she’s worked so hard to create.

The “fashion” spread of this issue features the fashion editor dressed up in different outfits that represent different facets of herself, as well, which emphasizes the point.  Who are you, and where do you see yourself?  What do you need to be you, and how do you show that to the world?

The fashion editor shows it through her clothing choice.  Ladin shows it by publishing a magazine that helps other female entrepreneurs.  And designing meta magazine covers.

What would the meta cover of your book or magazine look like?

‘Meta’ defined

When I tell people I blog about metafiction, I often hear “What’s metafiction?”  So I thought rather than examine a particular work this week, I’d discuss metafiction and perhaps arrive at a working definition for the purposes of this blog.

According to the dictionary…

Metafiction is “fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions (esp. naturalism) and traditional narrative techniques.” (That’s from my computer’s built-in dictionary.)

Merriam-Webster’s definition: “fiction which refers to or takes as its subject fictional writing and its conventions.”

Wikipedia’s definition: “a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually irony and self-reflection.”

Which definition is better?

They all are.  Personally, I take a very broad view of metafiction.  My “meta generosity,” if you want to call it that, stems from my background as a student of fiction, nonfiction, travel writing and journalism.  I like to think I’m a writer who takes risks in her work, whether structural or by mixing genres you probably shouldn’t mix (such as travel memoir with short story—that’s my big project right now).

By necessity, structure dovetails with metafiction, and is something that I will more than likely discuss here in the context of a work that has an interesting structure but perhaps isn’t quite metafiction.  In the same vein, I think genre-bending or juxtaposing two genres together (not blending them as in a sci-fi western, but using them side-by-side) dovetails with metafiction.

Both structure and genre exist in a fuzzy area between metafiction and “normal” fiction, and depending on the interpretation and the context, I think works that walk that line can go either way, as metafiction relies heavily on structure and often on genre blending/genre juxtaposition to deliver its message.

The writing becomes metafictional (in my mind) when the reader is taken outside of the story and is forced by the author to look in on it from the outside, normally to comment on the craft of writing, society at large, or some other issue, but commentary is not strictly necessary.

What about stories-within-stories?

The story-within-a-story is perhaps the most recognizable form of metafiction.  Don Quixote is an early and excellent example.  This form of story is inherently metafictional, because to tell a story about telling a story must in some way comment on the storytelling process.  How stories-within-stories comment on storytelling is another post, though.

Notice I used the word “tell” rather than “write” up there.  If you’ve read any of my entries on metajournalism or metamusic, you probably realize that I do not restrict metafiction to writing, nor to fiction.  Because of that, the distinction between “write” and “tell” is important.  You can tell a story in an infinite number of ways.  Writing is only one of those ways, albeit an incredibly powerful one.

“Meta” as defined by The Narrative in the Blog

I think it’s necessary to define meta in terms of a broader context than fiction for this blog, since I discuss more than fiction.  That being said…

A work of any genre or style is “meta” if the author of the work purposefully and self-consciously draws attention to the work’s structure, genre or existence as fiction/nonfiction for any purpose, or if the author of the work unintentionally uses a structure or other technique that draws attention to the work’s structure, genre or existence as fiction/nonfiction.

Hopefully this brief discussion helps you put my articles and commentary (and fiction!) in context.  Please feel free to add your own definitions, thoughts, or reactions to this in the comments!  I’m sure this is a topic I’ll return to innumerable times over the life of this blog, because metafiction can be such a shady area.  But that’s why I love it!

But it was true for me…

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.