The biggest change that the corona virus has made in me is with my compassion. In the earlier stages of the diseases spread through Ohio, beginning with those three cases in Cuyahoga County, I was a being a little bit selfish. Being young and in good health, I didn't feel like it was a direct threat against me. I had even planned on going to a Bernie rally which was taking place in Cleveland at the time. I really needed someone to give me a reality check, and thankfully, my grandpa did. I live with my grandparents and my grandpa is a 70 year old man who suffers from poly cystic kidney disease and a very weak immune system. When I told him I was thinking about heading up to Cleveland, he said, "Well bring hand sanitizer, cause if I catch this thing, I may just die."
He was completely joking when we he said this with a smile on his face, but with the widespread infection that has occurred all over the country in the past couple of weeks, that statement has been cemented into my conscious. I realized that a contagion like this spreads, because selfish people like me don't realize that being low risk doesn't mean you're not involved in the danger. I implore everyone to be more compassionate to the people you live with during this pandemic. Being stuck in your house can be depressing and mind numbing, but right now the world may as well be covered with gasoline. It's up to us to try our best not to light it.
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| I highly recommend this book if you want to prepare for the worst. Don't read it if you're already freaking yourself out. |
Part Two:
"Blurs Boundaries Between Genres 'Creative nonfiction...brings artistry to information and actuality to imagination, and it draws upon the expressive aim that lies below the surface in all writing'" (182, FGIB)
This is an excerpt very early on in our reading over break that really shows the importance of creative nonfiction as a medium. The most common misunderstanding that I've seen with creative nonfiction is that it is simply just retelling what happened. It's impossible to get wrong, because you have all of the facts. Hearing this infuriates me, because the language we use completely changes the gravity, emotion, and impact of a piece. This completely discounts the skill and craft that go behind composing in this genre. The thing that I find so fascinating about creative nonfiction is it's ability to take the facts and siphon a story out of them.
I think it would be odd not to relate my question to these claims. Do you guys agree that there is more involved with the artistry of telling a story rather than the events surrounding it? Also, should the author try his best to remain "invisible" and not meddle with how these facts are represented? I wonder if any of you guys have ever felt that an author has gotten in the way of their piece. Please do tell.
I think that the opinion you have leans towards Montaigne's point of view, and it's one that I agree with to a point. On one hand it's important to for the facts to be presented in an interesting way in order to draw the audience's interest, but on the other, it's important not to misrepresent the facts and clearly lay out what actually happened. I would say that the best creative nonfiction works strike a balance between the two aspects, still presenting the important important information while adding their own unique spin. I suppose that makes me, by definition, on the side of Montaigne, as Bacon wants the author to be perfectly objective, whereas Montaigne uses more subjective elements.
ReplyDeleteHi Max, I would certainly say that especially in creative non-fiction there is more of an obligation towards the artistry of a story over the complete truth of the events. I think because the reader is probably not looking to you the writer as a pillar of truth you have a decent amount of freedom to alter the reality of an event in order to make it more interesting as a piece of writing than it otherwise would be. I also think the idea of writers getting in their own way is interesting. I think in one of your comments on someone else's journal you talked about how some writers get so lost in trying to convince you the reader that something is true that it comes off more as if they are trying to convince themselves and I think there is a lot of truth to that observation.
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