Pynchon/Roth/Bellow/Updike on the 1960s

[David Morris]

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2009/02/20/haruki_murakami/index.html?source=newsletter

The novelist in wartime

In this powerful speech, the great author explains his controversial
decision to accept a literary prize in Israel and why we need to fight
the System.

By Haruki Murakami

Feb. 20, 2009

I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a
professional spinner of lies.

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians
do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own
kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and
builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that
no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed,
the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates
them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the
critics. Why should that be?

My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies --
which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true -- the
novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light
on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in
its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab
its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to
a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order
to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth
lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good
lies.

...

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Guy Ian Scott Pursey
<g.i.s.pursey at reading.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> (1) Language evolved not to construct truth but to tell lies.
> (2) In my understanding of fiction, we are deliberately told lies and so
> fiction is the peak achievement of language.
> (3) Realist fiction is actually a regression from what is possible.
> (4) "Postmodern" authors, whatever you want to call them, authors like
> Pynchon (are there any?) are tapping into this potential.