Monday, April 14, 2014
Non-fiction?
Given our discussion of "slanting the truth" and the expectation that comes along with seeing that a book is "non-fiction," I felt I had to point out Lansing's Preface. I opened this book to get ready to read, and the first sentence of the Preface made me laugh out loud. Right there on the first page, Lansing states "the story that follows is true." He lets that sink in and then in the next paragraph he begins with "every effort has been made to portray the events exactly as they occured." Lansing goes on to explain how he extensively interviewed the survivors of Shackleton's voyage and proclaims that together they worked to "re-create in the pages that follow as true a picture of the events as we could collectively produce." In the interest of fairness, I must note that he disclaims that "if any inaccuracies or misinterpretations have crept into this story, they are my own and should in no way be attributed to the men who took part in this expedition." However, the fact remains that this entire preface is devoted to proclaiming to the reader the Truth of this book. To go off of our recent discussions and questions in class, I ask: how much do we trust Lansing when he makes this proclamation? Do we trust/believe him more than Barrett since he is relaying a story that actually happened? Do we trust him more than Albanov since he states that he interviewed multiple survivors, and is presumably giving more than just one person's take on things? What do we make of his claim that this story is unquestionably "true"?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I had this exact same dilemma when I opened the book. Reading the introduction made me aware that the narrator we have isn't necessarily an unreliable narrator, but he certainly wasn't there for the events that occurred. The quote that you use: "the men bear no responsibility whatever for what follows. If any inaccuracies or misinterpretations have crept into this story, they are my own and should in no way be attributed to the men who took part in this expedition" seems like a contradiction to me. On the one hand, this places full responsibility on the narrator and proclaims this text as his work with his inaccuracies, which is how it should be read. However, how are different parts of his text "inaccuracies" when they are a part of his book? We don't have the "Original Correct Text" which proclaims some higher standard of events to compare this with, so how are we supposed to know which of these inaccuracies we're supposed to "blame" the author, as he seems to be instructing us to do?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMan this class has made us all cynical. While it is true that we have to keep a certain objectivity while reading Endurance because Lansing tells us that this is his recreation of the narrative, I think that it is unfair to not believe what he has written. Clearly he has spent a fair amount of time researching the expedition, and if there are inaccuracies it is probably a minor detail that was either over looked or was insignificant. He is not trying to consciously deceive us (not like that thief Konrad!). In fact, I find his account of the expedition very credible because if you do some digging on the internet, you find out that Lansing had access to almost every diary from the expedition and every living crewman at the time of writing gave him a lengthy interview. It seems to me that if Lansing had such resources available to him, that his recounting of the adventure would be trustworthy. In fact, I actually think his book would be more trustworthy than if Shackleton had written one himself because Lansing has included almost everyone's point of view and experiences into one story, and we don't have to rely on a single point of view like we did with Albanov.
ReplyDeleteScott- I understand what you are saying. I did not mean to say that we couldn't believe what Lansing has written. I just think that, like with every other book, we need to take Lansing's account with a grain of salt. As we've discussed in class, nothing can be "Truth" in it's retelling, because there is always bias (inadvertent or not). I agree that I do not fell like he is "consciously trying to deceive us," as you said. As Lansing says, he made "every effort" to make this a true story. However, as Alana stated, how would we know if it wasn't? Also, I ask again, how could it be entirely true, given its status as a retelling (and one by a third party no less).?
ReplyDelete