« “I May Be Neglecting the Things I Should Do” | Main | Today and Today: Poetry Friday »
June 14, 2007
Fiction for Nerds
Olivia told me to read The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart a long time ago, but I only got around to it last weekend. I loved it without reservation.[1] One of the things I loved best? The presence of footnotes. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last year and a half writing a lengthy piece of nonfiction that involves footnotes[2], but I realize that I appreciate the heck out of fiction that utilizes techniques typically reserved for nonfiction.
The Boyfriend List is told in the first person by main character, Roo, a girl in therapy for the panic attacks she develops after her best friend steals her boyfriend and Roo somehow ends up the social pariah. Roo’s narrative is winning on its own (“So I was keeping quiet about the whole horror that is my life…”), but she feels the need to footnote her words – as if she wrote everything down in one draft and then had to go back and clarify a few things. Sometimes she adds in tidbits from her therapist(“Doctor Z says it’s a good anxiety release to express your anger.”), although more often she elaborates on what she said in the text (“One of my all-time favorite words. Debacle: A sudden, complete, ludicrous downfall.”). It’s a nice device. Roo’s having panic attacks because she’s not expressing her feelings in other ways, and her narrative is an attempt to deal with her problems and express herself, but it seems like there are still things she’s having trouble including – she just can’t get them in on the first go-round. Form equals function. Nice.
Of course, the other recent and notable example of fiction with footnotes is An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I read this book months ago, but the narrative continues to fascinate me. The story follows child prodigy Colin as he tries to figure out who he is and who he’s going to become in the summer after he graduates high school. The book is in the third person limited to Colin, but it manages to read with the immediacy of the first person – no small trick.[3] As is proper, the third person narrator doesn’t offer opinions, except in the footnotes, in which this mysterious narrator starts throwing them out left and right. “A fuller explanation of the math involved here would be really boring and also really long,” says the narrator in footnote #31. “There is a part of books specifically designed for the very long and the very boring, and that part is called “The Appendix.”[4] The whole thing makes one wonder who, exactly, is this masked narrator. Is it Colin writing about himself in the third person? Green giving in to the temptation to intrude? What are we supposed to think?[5] I don’t know, but I love this book.
All of this reminds me of one of my favorite books: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I’ve only met one other person besides myself who will admit to liking this book, but it is one of the truest depictions of grief I’ve ever encountered. I’ve never understood its classification as nonfiction, though. I mean, on the one hand, it’s about Eggers’ life. On the other hand, he plays around with the narrative in a way that’s very fiction-y and postmodern.[6] He doesn’t use footnotes, but he uses diagrams, “rules and suggestions” for reading the book, and an “Incomplete Guide to Symbols and Metaphors.” It’s also true that I love Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography primarily for its index, which, for those familiar with the series, is hysterical. One thing I love about young Snicket readers is that they’re the kind of people who won’t look at me like I have three heads when I say, “Oh! I love the index in that book!”?[7] Anyway, I don’t know where this ultra-bookish book trend is coming from, but I like it. Let us have more.
[1] When she’s not anagramming in her head, Olivia has my taste in reading material completely pegged down.
[2] And a few appendices, but I’ll get to those in a moment.
[3] And certainly not the narrative style of choice in teen fiction today.
[4] Speak for yourself, Mr. Green. My appendices are perfectly interesting.
[5] After watching this video, I think that it may be safe to assume that Green has trouble not intruding into the narrative.
[6] I’d also wager he’s made stuff up.
[7] Either that or they are simply humoring me like everyone else.
Posted by adrienne at June 14, 2007 07:31 AM
Comments
I loved A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I didn't realize there was a problem with people admitting to that.
The one thing that has most stuck with me from that book--and practically ruined me forever--is Eggers' diatribe about using the word "ironic" improperly. He has a whole section of examples, and for each one says things like, "Is this really 'ironic'? Or merely 'unfortunate'?" Which will make it impossible to ever enjoy Alanis Morissette's song "Isn't It Ironic" anymore, but I think we can all agree, even without Dave Eggers' help, that rain on your wedding day is in no way ironic. Unless your spouse is psychic who predicts the weather and purposely chose this wedding date because it would be dry.
Would that be ironic? I'm all self-conscious about that now.
Posted by: Robin Brande at June 14, 2007 12:25 PM
Aside from the fact that she’s completely misusing “ironic,” I really like that song, so I’ve made a policy of singing along whenever I hear it, replacing the word “ironic” with the word “suck” (“Doesn’t that suck? Don’t you think? Doesn’t it really suck? Yeah, I really do think…”).
I think the psychic husband example might really be ironic, but it would be hard to fit into a song lyric. I think that’s the problem: irony isn’t something one can explain in a phrase. I spent a few months last year or the year before trying to teach my coworker Jason about irony (which I found really, really hard to explain – I kept saying, “It gives you this twisty feeling in your stomach”). I’m going to have to find the Eggars passage to show to Jason. He gets irony now, but I like to reinforce the concept whenever possible.
I think people react against A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius because it does its job so well. Grief is just so darned depressing.
BTW, have you seen Alanis Morissette's parody of "My Humps"? No irony, but lots of funny.
Posted by: adrienne at June 14, 2007 12:47 PM
Does the title of this blog entry automatically say that I'm a nerd? I mean, I'm not denying it, but I just wanted to be clear about it, since I did get you to read the book. By the way, there is a sequel that I am going to take home as soon as possible!!!
Posted by: olivia at June 14, 2007 06:55 PM
It pretty much goes without saying that we're both nerds, right? But that's a good thing.
I do know about the sequel, which I have at home, and I also want to read her Dramarama, which I also have at home. Yay to lots of good books to read!
Posted by: adrienne at June 14, 2007 07:59 PM
R.e. Footnotes in fiction, try reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, or The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud (in which the footnotes are the funniest part).
Posted by: wplmom at June 14, 2007 10:12 PM
Adrienne, to help you with your irony search, it's in the back of [i]A Heartbreaking Work[/i], maybe in the appendix, if there is one. It's been a while since I read it.
Posted by: Robin Brande at June 14, 2007 10:31 PM
Irony, an illustration:
Chuck Norris's girlfriend once asked him how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. He then shouted, "HOW DARE YOU RHYME IN THE PRESENCE OF CHUCK NORRIS!" and ripped out her throat. Holding the bloody throat in his hand, he bellowed, "Don't fuck with Chuck!"
Two years and five months later he realized the irony of this statement and laughed so hard that anyone within a hundred mile radius of the blast went deaf.
Posted by: Jen at June 15, 2007 09:18 AM