wallace-l: Will's Students, Brennan

[Paul Mackin]

First, I have to say I have never read the novel, so this commentary
may not have much value. (In fact I may miss the entire point)

Kathleen Brennan writes, "I have a hard time believing that Auster is a
cop-out, that he's just tantalizing his readers with the prospect of an
answer [to whether there is a universal truth]." This seems a bit harsh.

If Auster has succeeded in "tantalizing" the reader with the question,
and he apparently has, he has fulfilled his authorial duty. One doesn't
reasonably expect the solution to eternal philosophical enigmas in a piece
of fiction (or any place else for that matter).

I would have been interested in learning how this author went about 
presenting the dilemma in such a way as to captivate this particular
reader.

One futher question comes to mind. What if this fiction writer,
after having presented the age old philosophical--and at the same time
very modern literary--question of what is truth--then declined to
equivocate but proceeded to give the reader a precise though necesarily
specious answer. The story could still be fictionally satisfying,
and well worth a reading.  

Enjoyed reading the essay.

				P.    


On Wed, 15 May 1996 WillL at fieldschool.com wrote:

> Date	5/15/96
> Subject	Will's Students, Brennan
> From	WillL
> To	Pynchon List, Wallace List
> 
> Will's Students, Brennan
> 
> Dear Listers,
> 
> Here is the promised first dispatch from my high school seniors.  Kathleen has
> chosen to write generally about the question of what's "true" in a piece of
> recent fiction, using Paul Auster's "Leviathan" as an example.  Even if you
> haven't read it, please feel free to respond to her, and feel free use other
> works in your response, particularly "The Crying of Lot 49," which the students
> also read.  I plan to collate the various responses and discuss them with the
> students in a seminar.  Thanks for your help!
> 
> -- Will Layman
> 
> ********************
> 
> Authors have often  explored the difference between what's being said and what's
> actually taking place, but recently authors are taking this relationship between
> truth and fiction further.   Paul Auster's "Leviathan" is a novel which attacks
> this relationship in a series of ways from the traditional "unreliable narrator"
> to actual discussions about the discrepancy between truth and fiction.  From the
> moment we are told our narrator's name, Peter Aaron, the warning bells begin to
> sound.  The similarity of the author's initials and the initials of our
> narrator, also a writer, is hardly accidental.  While the plot of the story
> itself seems primarily fictional, we begin to wonder about the small details
> included about the narrator's own life.  Auster exacerbates this questioning of
> the verity of details.  For example, at one point Aaron is producing a first
> class fib for a few FBI's, and "To illustrate my point, I gave them several
> examples -- all of them true, all of them taken directly from my own
> experience."
> 
> While we're fumbling around trying to figure out which parts of the story really
> belong to Auster (searching unsuccessfully for an "About the Author"), we're
> pushed farther and farther forward into Auster's truth-fiction game.  Our
> narrator tells us that he is unreliable.  He tells us that he's basing his story
> on other people's stories and on his assumptions.  He tells us that in talking
> to two different people you can get two different truths.  "In other words,
> there was no universal truth.  Not for them , not for anyone else."   So, is
> that it?  Has Auster taken us through this fun house of connections and
> contradictions  only to set us down with these five words, "there was (is) no
> universal truth"?   So is this an incredible insight into the balance in which
> we live?  Under this premise then truth is interpretation.  You see it your way
> and I'll see it mine.  History is malleable.  But I don't know, I'm rather
> partial to facts.  So maybe it's a cop-out answer, one of those responses from
> the sullen kid at the back of the class who is sick of everyone's thoughts on
> the matter and even of thinking about it himself; so he gives an all
> encompassing response.  But I'm not so sure about that either.  I have a hard
> time believing that Auster is a cop-out, that he's just tantalizing his readers
> with the prospect of an answer.  So my question is this, which one of these is
> the truth?  Or isn't there one because Auster's not lying and there is no
> universal truth?  Oh, but does that mean that that's the true answer, which
> means that he's wrong, which . . . .
> 
> -- Kathleen Brennan
> 
> 
> 
> 
>