In the opening lines to her collection of essays about life during the 1960s in California, Joan Didion says, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” The collection explores the ways in which this time era shifted her perspective of narrative, how stories were no longer following recognizable patterns for her. In the age of information, self-disclosure, and voyeurism, where anything is possible and everything accessible, are we ready for fiction that breaks away from traditional narrative structure? I’m a part of a book club and recently we read Carole Maso’s Ava, a story about a woman on her deathbed, recalling various memories from her life. Rather than a traditional narrative structure, with a beginning, middle, and end, we read scattered fragments of memories—pieces of stories in a collage arrangement, sometimes expanded upon at later points in the text, sometimes not. In her story, sentences often replace entire paragraphs and often there are no smooth transitions between ideas. The whole text contradicts anything we’ve ever been schooled with in terms of story and effective communication. Yet I find the story beautiful and challenging for that very reason. Reading this story makes me feel like a detective, an active participant, working along side the author to create meaning for the text.
Many of my fellow book club-ers did not agree with me. From the first two minutes of the book club discussion, it was apparent that I was marooned on my own little island of poetic, non-linear enjoyment. Most of the others were frustrated by the text, saying the text suffered from A.D.D., was pretentious, full of navel gazing. I enthusiastically pointed out beautiful language: “what about the poetry of this image”:
In my memory the white flower seems always to be in blossom.
There were swans there.
She wore blue shoes.
“Or this”: Sunstruck, drunk, lying with lizards. Eating earth. And how you fed me flowers. And sang to me. The cock crowing, the river for a bed.
Some of my fellow book club-ers could agree with the magic of some of Maso’s isolated language, yet still, more than one said, “I enjoyed our discussion about this book much more than the book itself.”
In an article about confessional poetry, poet Claudia Rankine says, “Is it fair to say there is, in the twenty-first century, a greater consensus toward the notion that true coherency is fragmented?” We can apply this question to experimental fiction too, and wonder if Maso’s style is not more of a reflection of our current reality and truth than the traditional narrative.
Our book club talked about what it is we seek in fiction. For some, escape was the answer, for others, a reflection of truth or to learn something new. I realized then that it is language itself that I seek when I read, that I was okay with tossing aside traditional narrative structure, for the enjoyment and challenge of the arrangement and sounds of words, and even the blank space between words and ideas—a place for me to play detective, or dreamer, and fill in the missing narrative.
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You are a lover of words and language. That is probably why you are a writer. Me, I am a reader, and I read to escape. I do like novels that do not follow the "traditional" Western narrative though. Many Native American and African writers write in a circular structure that seems to reflect the art of oral storytelling. My book club-bers also did not like the Native American novel that I proposed. They are harder work, but like you, I find the challenge enjoyable. I'll put this one on my list.
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