In
my opinion, the general concept would be the only thing that has to be the same
as the real-life event that is spotlighted in the book for the book to be
considered non-fiction. This is because the message that the author is trying
to give you from the experience is the one thing that gives the story
personality. A consistent personality is how people catagorize stories and
books they have read.
Half truths are okay so long that the
reader knows that the story is half true, or does not know and cannot know in
any way, shape, or form. This is because, if the reader knows only half of the
story might be true, they could be reading it with a hating demeanor. If they
read it not knowing whether or not all events in the story are not true, they
might be thinking something along the lines of, "Holy crap, this really
happened???" while also considering the odds that an event of the sort
would occur.
No, I do not thing David Shields is
right in this instance because if someone who is reading a book and does not
know that it is the genre that they absolutely hate could end up wasting their
time and money on a book that they would simply not enjoy. While some
discrimination against books solely because of their genre (book racism) should
not happen, preference is a right and responsibility to all readers and they
should be assisted by genres in finding their perfect book.
I disagree with your first statement. If the book isn't true, it should be fiction. It should not be called non-fiction if the book is filled with lies and made-up what not. Even if it is half true or 75% true or 98% true, there is still that small part that isn't true and for that reason I do not think it can really be classified as non-fiction.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting point when you say that half-truths are okay as long as the reader has no way of ever discovering their falsehood. I agree that this sounds good, but in the case of memoirs, I think these half-truths will almost always be discovered, as it is simply too easy to check the authors background and either verify or refute their claims.
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