Is It Fiction If It Says "Fiction" On The Cover? Jorge Luis Borges brilliantly obscured fact and fiction presenting fiction as fact. Things seem to have swung round 180º and fact is now increasingly being sold as fiction. This certainly seems to be the case with Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved. She's Paul Auster's second wife and... Well... now even critics, like The New York Observer's Joe Hagan have joined the fun, as Slate's Katie Roiphe duly noted. Fact is now presented as fiction, without the traditional disguise of the roman à clef. I think it's sad. In fact, it's an attempt on the life of imagination itself. Perhaps these authors who write memoirs masquerading as novels could be sued under the Trade Description Act? [With thanks to the always excellent Literary Salon weblog. Thanks to ColdChef for pointing it out to me.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Apr 23, 2003 - 28 comments

"New York City/Home, Sweet Home": The New York Observer brings out a terrific, jam-packed issue. (Articles by Tom Wolfe, Janet Malcolm, Cynthia Ozick, Bruce McCall, Clay Felker, Stephen Jay Gould and many others. Christy Turlington and Michael Bloomberg even!)
posted by MiguelCardoso on Dec 13, 2001 - 12 comments