"The Trinity, understandably called a mystery, lies at the heart of Christianity. It achieves two major goals: it posits a realm that transcends the physical world, in which reality is made by the word. History is filled with rulers who claimed divinity to justify their superiority, but not until Christianity and the sacralizing of the notion that language creates reality does the debate between appearance and reality begin to pervade Western literature and thought. Increasingly what is said - the Emperor has new clothes - is called real, while physical reality fades into invisibility or is denied..."*
This is exactly why the difference between memoir and fiction is important.
A Wolf at the Table** is hyper-clear, vivid, tense, exact... There are charismatic people; this is charismatic writing, as it were: all the good things intensified.
As autobiography, A Wolf at the Table speaks intimately to all varieties of modern culture: titled for the dinner-table, sited within the house - that nexus of neurosis, ambition, jealousy, dissatisfaction, bullying, denial, invisibility, quasi-slavery, all called love - the house and the psyche both isolated.
It says monsters and madness can exist among some of the people we knew, are bound to, frequent, depend on in one way or another: the words for known people and places are not antonyms of humanity's nastier aspects.
It says outrageousness can be as close as the sweat on your skin, and don't you forget it.
==
This is exactly why the difference between memoir and fiction is important.
A Wolf at the Table** is hyper-clear, vivid, tense, exact... There are charismatic people; this is charismatic writing, as it were: all the good things intensified.
As autobiography, A Wolf at the Table speaks intimately to all varieties of modern culture: titled for the dinner-table, sited within the house - that nexus of neurosis, ambition, jealousy, dissatisfaction, bullying, denial, invisibility, quasi-slavery, all called love - the house and the psyche both isolated.
It says monsters and madness can exist among some of the people we knew, are bound to, frequent, depend on in one way or another: the words for known people and places are not antonyms of humanity's nastier aspects.
It says outrageousness can be as close as the sweat on your skin, and don't you forget it.
==
* French, Marilyn, From Eve to Dawn: a History of Women, Volume 1, Origins, New York, The Feminist Press, 2008, p. 245.
** Burroughs, Augusten, A wolf at the table: a memoir of my father, New York, St. Martin's Press, 2008.
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