reply to Kathleen Brennan

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     You've written a passionate essay, Kathleen, but I'm wondering what you 
     want Auster to tell you.  That truth *isn't* subject to interpretation? 
     That history *isn't* malleable?  You need only consult your friendly 
     neighborhood Branch Davidian or Holocaust Revisionist to find that 
     unpleasant absolutes abound in life and are yours, yours for the 
     taking.  Want 'em?  They're solid.  Ve-ry firm.  I have an idea, 
     though, that you've got a taste for the Universal Benevolent Truth and, 
     sigh, I don't know if such a thing exists.  Call me up when you find 
     out.
     
     In terms of truth in fiction:  What's the truth about Holden Caulfield 
     -- world-class despiser of phonies, remember -- who says, "I'm the most 
     terrific liar you ever saw in your life.  It's awful.  If I'm on my way 
     to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm 
     going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera.  It's terrible."  
     Isn't it left to the reader to determine the "verity of details" about 
     Holden's, um, "real" life, as opposed to what he tells in the tale of 
     his life to others, to us?  Now Auster, of course, goes off into 
     territory unexplored by JDS (another living writer Who Matters, 
     n'est-ce, pas?) and really rocks our (traditional?) notions of what 
     constitutes novelistic form and author identity, but the point is the 
     same, I think.   
     
     Just some random thoughts...
     
     Chris Karatnytsky      
     
     
     
     
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Will's Students, Brennan
Author:  WillL at fieldschool.com at Internet 
Date:    5/15/96 7:06 PM
     
     
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