Reading and writing

[Vincent A. Maeder]

One could say that since writing is as a result of a singular person's
(other than collaborations) artistic process, of a slice of the mental
world that author inhabits, their interpretation and their EFFORT to
translate their thoughts, their emotions, to the page through various
devices afforded the writing art, that yes all writing is fiction.  

BUT, what of the instruction manual that comes with the nightstand that
I put together?  Is a coherent POV created in that document?  Is an
instruction manual, no matter how terse, alliterative or verbose, also
fiction?  

And a related issue: Is there a Platonic form of that manual, the
perfect manual, of which this nightstand's documentation is a mere
shadow?

Back to work.

V.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf Of Malignd
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 5:31 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Reading and writing

<<All writing is indeed representation, which means
all writing is fictional, ie a construct.>>

All writing is "fictional"?  Writing doesn't exist? 
Is that what you're saying?

Do you mean, perhaps, all writing is "fiction"?  If
all writing is fiction, then the term is entirely
useless in discussing writing and can be dispensed
with.  All writing is fiction; all writing is writing.

No argument there.