Friday, June 23, 2006
Next year's theme
The theme is Faction. Faction includes books where a story has been made up around actual people or events. This means historical novels or books such as Colm Toibin's The Master which is a recreation of Henry James' last years. It doesn't include books which purport to be non-fiction.
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Helen discovered that her choice of Nafisi's 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' was really non-fiction. This is an interesting topic. Biography is a genre which often crossses the border between fact and imaginative reconstruction. Take for example Claire Tomalin's biogs 'Jane Austen' and 'The Invisible Woman' (about Charles Dickens' mistress Nelly Ternan.)
She has deliberately chosen women about whom relatively little is known but her books are viewed as historical truth. They are in part reflections on the social position of women and thus have a general truth surmised from the particular lives.
She has deliberately chosen women about whom relatively little is known but her books are viewed as historical truth. They are in part reflections on the social position of women and thus have a general truth surmised from the particular lives.
Ros wants to do 'The Camomile Lawn' by Mary Wesley. Having read Wesley's biography, 'Wild Mary: The Life of Mary Wesley' by Patrick Marnham,Ros can confirm that the 'Lawn' is heavily autobiographical so that we can say it is a novel based on fact. Any comments?
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