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This article is not about whether white people can wear kimonos. Author Richard Russo wrote a well received story about a Belgian nun, with details drawn from a

This article is not about whether white people can wear kimonos. Author Richard Russo wrote a well received story about a Belgian nun, with details drawn from a nun that he met in real life. He is not, nor has he ever been, a Belgian or a nun. He is not apologetic about writing a fictionalized life of someone quite unlike himself, but he ruminates at length about the power of an author's imagination, the limits of that power, its wise exercise, and the ways it seizes authors as well as being seized by them. Russo also wrote a book that revealed very private details of his late mother's life. Did he owe her still-living friends and relatives silence until they too were gone? The conclusion is: no, authors write about what seizes their attention. But he doesn't really seek to absolve himself. It's more like an addict talking about addiction: "I took another drink, because that's the compulsion I felt." The well-received story about a Belgian nun was received mostly among his English-language readers in the United States. Not nuns or Belgians. What was the Belgian nun reception like? Russo doesn't know. He suspects it would be less enthusiastic, because they would spot the cracks in his story more readily. The closer the readers are to the life experience of the characters, and the further the author is from his characters, the more the author risks readers' trust in trying to write those characters. There's also a characterization-gap risk regarding authors and other authors as well as regarding authors and readers. If Russo sells novels with characterizations of Belgian nuns or black men, what does that do to the literary prospects of actual Belgian nuns or black men who are trying to sell their first manuscript? Can he end up non-maliciously but thoroughly quashing their publishability just by showing up first, even if his nuns are less authentic than those written by an actual nun? Quite possibly, yes. Russo posits that the struggle for position among authors has become more desperate in recent years. Publishers aren't as patient about investing in new talent because they are facing more financial pressure. That means that established authors like himself can casually, even accidentally, displace authors who could draw better portraits of certain kinds of characters. That's unfortunate for those would-be authors and for the reading public.

mydongle 6y ago
Wait, but don't writers usually already do real research into whatever they're going to write about? If I did research on what Belgian nuns did in their life and wrote about it, is that wrong? Is that less accurate than if the Belgian nun wrote it herself? The thing is, most Belgian nuns probably are never going to write a book and especially not the book that I wanted to write. I hope we don't start banning people from writing about things they've never experienced, because that's the point of fiction and imagination. I've never slayed a dragon, but I can write about doing so because I imagined it. Sigh, one day probably only black people will be allowed to write black characters huh? Or maybe you have to pay a black person for their input and account and for them to endorse your writing?
- philipkglass 6y ago
  Russo approaches this in a less combative way than you have framed it. He has imaginative power: what does it do to him, what does he do with it, and what should he do with it? He hasn't definitively answered these questions even after 5000 words of pondering. It's the opposite of a Twitter hot take telling other people what they are allowed to do. Authors do variable amounts of research to background their characters. Sometimes shockingly little. Many HN readers can probably relate to encountering an eyeball-rolling "hacking" scene in a thriller. It's possible that a diligent author can write a character of a certain background just as well never having lived it, but the odds are not in their favor. The not-having-lived-it problem leads to some interesting challenges with historical fiction. Nobody alive today has been a 14th century French knight. Which authors really try to do their research and don't just treat time and place as set dressing for generic drama? How much work am I going to do as a reader to discover these harder-working authors? Sometimes I wonder: should I just dive in to scholarly source material about medieval history instead of reading novels set there? Sometimes the answer is "yes, just read history."
  - NateEag 6y ago
    This touches nicely on why I have always preferred science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, and mythology to historical fiction: When the whole thing is fiction, you don't need to fuss about which parts are historically accurate. Historical fiction must necessarily be a blending of truth and lies, and as such it has never held my interest.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
> The conclusion is: no, authors write about what seizes their attention. But he doesn't really seek to absolve himself. It's more like an addict talking about addiction: "I took another drink, because that's the compulsion I felt." This is an important point. On some level, it seems like Russo believes that right and wrong are not the most important thing here. It really all comes down to this: I had the power to do so, and I wanted to, so I did. But, at least he is thoughtful about it, and recognizes how fraught the situation is. I don't know if he is even wrong. A lot of things in life are about power. A lot of times, something that is within your power to do will make other people unhappy. You can be paralyzed by thinking about all the different ways that someone might disapprove of what you do. There's no final arbiter to tell you when you should consider those people's feelings above your own desires. On the other hand, prosocial behavior is also important. It's something we all have to balance for ourselves.

mydongle 6y ago

Wait, but don't writers usually already do real research into whatever they're going to write about? If I did research on what Belgian nuns did in their life and wrote about it, is that wrong? Is that less accurate than if the Belgian nun wrote it herself? The thing is, most Belgian nuns probably are never going to write a book and especially not the book that I wanted to write. I hope we don't start banning people from writing about things they've never experienced, because that's the point of fiction and imagination. I've never slayed a dragon, but I can write about doing so because I imagined it. Sigh, one day probably only black people will be allowed to write black characters huh? Or maybe you have to pay a black person for their input and account and for them to endorse your writing?

philipkglass 6y ago
Russo approaches this in a less combative way than you have framed it. He has imaginative power: what does it do to him, what does he do with it, and what should he do with it? He hasn't definitively answered these questions even after 5000 words of pondering. It's the opposite of a Twitter hot take telling other people what they are allowed to do. Authors do variable amounts of research to background their characters. Sometimes shockingly little. Many HN readers can probably relate to encountering an eyeball-rolling "hacking" scene in a thriller. It's possible that a diligent author can write a character of a certain background just as well never having lived it, but the odds are not in their favor. The not-having-lived-it problem leads to some interesting challenges with historical fiction. Nobody alive today has been a 14th century French knight. Which authors really try to do their research and don't just treat time and place as set dressing for generic drama? How much work am I going to do as a reader to discover these harder-working authors? Sometimes I wonder: should I just dive in to scholarly source material about medieval history instead of reading novels set there? Sometimes the answer is "yes, just read history."
- NateEag 6y ago
  This touches nicely on why I have always preferred science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, and mythology to historical fiction: When the whole thing is fiction, you don't need to fuss about which parts are historically accurate. Historical fiction must necessarily be a blending of truth and lies, and as such it has never held my interest.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

> The conclusion is: no, authors write about what seizes their attention. But he doesn't really seek to absolve himself. It's more like an addict talking about addiction: "I took another drink, because that's the compulsion I felt." This is an important point. On some level, it seems like Russo believes that right and wrong are not the most important thing here. It really all comes down to this: I had the power to do so, and I wanted to, so I did. But, at least he is thoughtful about it, and recognizes how fraught the situation is. I don't know if he is even wrong. A lot of things in life are about power. A lot of times, something that is within your power to do will make other people unhappy. You can be paralyzed by thinking about all the different ways that someone might disapprove of what you do. There's no final arbiter to tell you when you should consider those people's feelings above your own desires. On the other hand, prosocial behavior is also important. It's something we all have to balance for ourselves.