discussion

Description

This course week will focus on Marie NDiaye and her work Autoportrait en Vert Self-Portrait in Green. As memoir and novel merge, consider carefully what you would maintain as fiction, because, as we have begun to learn from the beginning of this course,fiction may relate to the actual genuine true story (portrait) at a deeper level, rather than a superficial one. We see this deeply reflected in our critical understanding of the relationship between the author and the narrator. Specifically to our current text, analyzing and understanding the women in green is key to unlocking the truth, so review the articles introducing NDiaye in this regard as well as the commentary of the discussion board. Important questions and notes to consider: -When writing fact, do we really know the difference between reality and conception, and when they overlap? It is interpretation, so where lies the truth? -In the relationship between the author and narrator, the narrator in “I” may mean that both the author and the narrator are speaking, but it does not mean that the author and the narrator are the same person. Which would be the case for Ndiaye, unique to Borges and Calvino, as her book is both memoir and story? -A portrait is by definition non-narrative, non-linear, more of a mosaic than a progression. -A reflection on the Maupin quote, further enlightened by the Lessing quote above: why fiction over fact? Is it because fiction is more capable of expressing a subject that is most difficult to grasp: ourself?  -Consider carefully Maupin’s expression “to get to the truth.” Important to read carefully here. As we read at the beginning of the semester regarding Nabokov’s advice: do away with the preconceived notion that NDiaye is hiding something, but, instead, consider that she might be unearthing something–yes, even in part painful and negative–not because she cannot deal with expressing it directly, but because to express such a truth, facts fall short. To express such a truth, only the imagination can tell the tale. Consider that NDiaye is not, in fact, fearful in any sense of being judged or labeled: quite the opposite, she has proven to be quite the maverick in her work, who has no fear of taboo, or of preconceived literary formal models, for that matter.    Study assignment: Welcome to Week 9 and Marie NDiaye, where the relationship between the narrator and the author becomes even more intriguing, as we encounter a novelist who writes her memoir using fiction, as the line between truth and fiction proves evermore complex, elusive, and dynamic.     Review the literary term frame story (story within a story). Can there be a story within a story in a memoir?