Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I can't help but question the authenticity of Herzog's quotes...



It may just be my journalistic instincts, but all throughout Annapurna I was distracted by Herzog’s seemingly impossible style of narration. For a book of this genre he uses an unexpected amount of dialogue, and I can’t help but be skeptical of that. His constant quotations, often of seemingly routine and unremarkable conversations that end up providing small bits of exposition, feel like they can’t possibly be accurately quoted from real life. In my experience it is near-impossible to get an accurate quote without an audio recording, and it seems unlikely that he would have been recording all of the expedition’s banter for later use in this book. They did have video gear, but, given the types of conversations that he presents as direct quotes, it doesn’t even feel like he’s pulling the quotes from recorded video. Herzog’s original 1952 introduction also explains that the narrative is based mostly on the expedition’s log, Lachenal’s journal and his memory, sources that don’t seem likely to contain exact, word-for-word records of conversations. He also explains that he dictated the whole book while being treated in the hospital, making his quotes even less credible.

After being bothered by the barrage of inevitably inaccurate quotes, I started to wonder if it really mattered. While I carried doubts about the accuracy of the quotes, I never suspected the authenticity of the narrative as a whole—he isn’t a liar, just a writer with blatant disregard for the laws of journalism. After thinking it over, I’ve come to the conclusion that while it doesn’t fully spoil the narrative, my experience reading Annapurna was negatively affected by my nagging doubts about all the incredible (by its original definition) quotations he uses to color the story. I don’t think it’s unfair to hold authors accountable for both their content and presentation, and Herzog’s presentation just felt really problematic. I’m open to discussion on this though, comment away if you have thoughts on the subject.

5 comments:

  1. I hadn't actually considered this aspect of the narrative until you brought it up. I now realize how full the narrative is of quotes, especially from the Sherpas. I wonder how different the narrative would've been if their voices and conversations with the members of the expedition had been recorded. I don't know if the quotes make the narrative less trustworthy or that they demonstrate a disregard for the rules of journalism. I can't say Annapurna is exactly a work of journalism. I think he's just trying to give a fact-based account of the expedition and not a newspaper account. Nonetheless, it makes it a bit less trustworthy.

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  2. I agree with the idea that Herzog doesn't intend the book to be a work of journalism, and thereby he doesn't bind his writing to the practice's conventions, but it bothered me nonetheless to find myself doubting so many of the details that he presents. Especially since his style of exposition through dialogue doesn't seem necessary, as he could have just used declarative or expository statements instead of quotes, I just thought it was a problematic and obnoxious style for Herzog to rely on so heavily.

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  3. It's something I hadn't quite articulated before reading your post, but I agree with you. I read the other Annapurna text which has far less of a dialogue-based approach and I found it more believable that way. Blum took a more narrative style to her text, and she interspersed her logistical recounting with reflections on her thoughts and worries - that made her story feel much more 'human' to me (especially considering I can't literally relate to a Himalayan expedition). Granted, thoughts and fears and desires and worries can be greatly exaggerated or clouded if they're not written down in the moment. However, I also think that reflecting on emotions gives them a retrospective quality that doesn't detract from the text. Maybe it's just my personal opinion, but I find stories that take a more narrative approach to be more realistic because they tell the reader not just what is said, but what is thought as well, which makes the characters more multi-dimensional.

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  4. I agree with Heather, that reporting / filling in thoughts helps round out characters more and thus draws in the reader. But of course it's a slippery slope in terms of filling in the blanks and the aim of the book (reporting). After making it to the end, I felt more like I was reading a novel than an account of an adventure. Herzog, I feel, enjoyed romanticizing the telling of his time on the mountain, which certainly would have affected our experience of it. I'm just sad that it was so obvious to us by the end. If he'd been subtler I might not have noticed. But I also may have been bored.

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  5. I agree with all of you that "filling in" a story with reflections makes it more interesting to the reader, particular one looking for a novel-type experience. However, I also think it is important when dealing with a text to consider the audience the author has created for him/herself. In this case, I believe that Herzog was writing to a mountaineering community, who would have found this narrative intrinsically interesting and understood the triumph of it. This does not mean that others, like ourselves, cannot also access the narrative, only that Herzog may not have considered us when he constructed it.

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