24 January 2006

Fiction: “The English Lesson”; Nonfiction: “Going Home: Brooklyn Revisited”

  Fiction-nonfiction dialogue: instructor

Reading “The English Lesson" and "Going Home: Brooklyn Revisited" for the differences between fiction and nonfiction, the main difference that immediately strikes me is that of intimacy or identification with the subject, characters, and scene.

In the fictional "English Lesson," the reader is drawn into Lali's and William's world. You feel like you're walking on the street or standing behind the lunch counter with them. You feel William's self-consciousness at being small or Lali's uncertain love for William or Rudi. You even feel Rudi's confusion over whether to let Lali become educated or not. The reader "inhabits" the fictional world.

In the nonfiction "Going Home: Brooklyn Revisited," you see what the narrator is describing, but you don't feel the same depth of identification or sharing with the characters and scene. You stand in-between your usual world and this special world. This position is comparable to the narrator, who used to belong to this world and says she still loves it, but she doesn't act or speak in the changing world of Bensonhurst. Her world is either the past Bensonhurst or the outside world in which she's a writer.

Questions: Is this level of emotional sharing or intimacy a convincing difference between fiction and nonfiction?

How would this difference serve the different purposes of fiction and nonfiction?

What are the other "markers" that let you know that "English Lesson" is fiction and "Going Home" is nonfiction?

Are there any "counter-markers?"--that is, where does the "English Lesson" sound like nonfiction? Where does "Going Home" sound like fiction?

Instructor's answers:

How would this difference (in intimacy or inhabitation-level) serve the different purposes of fiction and nonfiction?

Fiction is successful when it "sweeps up" the reader and takes them into a world they couldn't know or feel otherwise. Analysis or thinking doesn't necessarily happen until the story

Nonfiction is more intended to learn or analyze. The "distance" one feels from the scene and people in Bensonhurst helps one maintain "critical distance" and encourages analysis.

We probably like fiction better for the first reason, but the second reason explains how thinking may work more systematically with nonfiction.

What are the other "markers" that let you know that "English Lesson" is fiction and "Going Home" is nonfiction?

Fiction "markers": "English Lesson,"

first names only? Lali, William, Rudi

setting only sketched: classroom, lunch counter, street (reader fills in background)

Nonfiction "markers": "Going Home: Brooklyn Revisited"

real people with real titles in real places: "the principal, Michael Russo" of "New Utrecht High School"

first and last names: Arnold Horowitz

level of generalization in talking about groups of people: "decent, hardworking patriots" (159)

surprise? setting is more detailed than in fiction

Are there any "counter-markers?"--that is, where does the "English Lesson" sound like nonfiction? Where does "Going Home" sound like fiction?

Nonfiction "counter-markers": "English Lesson,"

22  . . . twenty-eight students, twenty-seven rgistered . . . Spanish Speaking, Puerto Ricans, Chinese, Dominicans, Sicilian, Pole . . . Bayside, Queens

Fiction "counter-markers": "Going Home: Brooklyn Revisited"

bottom p. 160 personal journey of narrator

Instructor's conclusion:

None of these are rules!

Only ways to process similarities and differences, keep thinking alive.

Nf more topical? References age more quickly

Wealth of detail, reality ages

Fiction more intimate; reader “inhabits” world > escape

Nonfiction more distant > rational, objective thought; abstract analysis

“Report from Bahamas”

312 abstract theorizing—x-fiction, unless in voice of character

fiction: inhabit action, identify with character

non-fiction: distance from action, direct representation > ability to "get some distance," think abstractly