Oh Molly!

[Paul Nightingale]

>From Terrance:
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> "All writing is indeed representation, which means
> all writing is fictional, ie a construct."
> 
> 
> What are you saying here?

Whatever you write represents something else. The novel represents 'life
in a totalitarian society'. The match report represents 'yesterday's
game'. The blurb on the wrapper represents the 'actual ingredients' in
the bar. The textbook represents the 'research' that has been done in
that particular area. It's pretty obvious by now, I take it as axiomatic
that we can only know each of the 'things' in quotes through the text(s)
that represent(s) them. As far as writing is concerned, there is no
outside-the-text.

Second point. If all writing is a form of representation, a way of
describing something, it (the writing) stands between the reader and
whatever has been described. The text mediates between the real world
and the reader. You might disagree with the reporter's judgement, which
indicates that your own recollection/representation is an alternative
account. The way something has been described is important. Two history
books will describe, eg, WW2 quite differently.

Hence, to say all writing is fictional, is to draw attention to the act
of writing and say that all writing (ie the text produced) is a
construct. To say it's a construct simply means it's been written this
way rather than that way. That in turn begs the question, why? Why has
this account been written in this, as opposed to that, way?

To elaborate, both new historicism and cultural materialism would
consider writing historically (even though they go about it
differently). Writing isn't 'just' a social construct but
writing-in-history.

For example, one might answer the above question ("why this way rather
than that?") by saying, it's the author, everything comes from the
author. However, once one starts to consider the way in which the
author's perspective (consciously what they intend, let alone whatever
they're unaware of) is formed in and by the times they live in, you
start to consider the way in which, so to speak, society writes through
the individual. I would go so far as to say the individual can only
write what it's possible to write at any given time. Hence, the idea of
the autonomous author, rising above history, becomes to say the least
questionable.