Submitted by Thomas Armstrong (not verified) on October 31, 2007 - 11:16am.
Tobias Buckell's discussion is very interesting. The whole issue of "Appropriation of Voice" is, like most things human, fascinating, complex and sad. The longer I think about this issue the more difficult I find it to come to any fixed conclusion. All I know is that when I read their work I don't care that Edgar Mittelholzer is almost white or that George Lamming is quite dark. What matters to me is whether I can make their stories mine. I know that words are weapons, I just happen to like the ones that stab at the heart.
Thomas, of course! I hadn't thought to link Toby's post to the whole Gordian knot that is the issue of appropriation of voice, but you're quite right. I began a post a few days ago on that very topic, but I realised it'd be an essay, and I don't have time for it right now with a novel deadline imminent. I do care, in some way, that Mittelholzer and Lamming are Caribbeans writing about the Caribbean. Except when I don't care. When a work sucks me in and feels authentic and has me eagerly turning every page to get to the next, then the writer's race, ethnicity, identity, cultural background, socio-economic background, sexuality, gender, etc., while still of interest to me if the author cares to make them known, are not issues in terms of the artistic merit of the work. I have that reaction to lots of Ian Mcdonald's work.
It occurs to me that where I do know the writer's background, it can affect how much trust about authenticity I'm willing to grant them as I open the book. When someone like Edgar Mittelholzer writes about Guyana, Trinidad, England, etc. I'm not thinking to question his depiction of them because I know he's spent long years living in them. In terms of earning my trust as a reader, he begins with a point in his favour. But I may be making a mistake by granting that point off the bat, because perhaps he's misinformed or not perceptive about the aspect of the culture that he chooses to depict, and I may not recognize that. When someone like Ian McDonald writes about Africa, India and Brazil (and here I'm presuming that Ian's not lived long years in any of those places. I may well be totally wrong), I do scrutinize the story more closely for elements that feel like markers of authenticity. The irony being that I haven't lived in Africa, India, or Brazil, so what the hell do I know about whether he's depicted them authentically? Would I recognise such a marker if it bit me on the ass? Often I wouldn't. So my response is not logical, and is not the same right across the board. But art is unquantifiable like that. All I know is, with much of Ian's work set in cultures that I assume are largely foreign to him, I might start with a certain amount of skepticism, but I relax a little bit more every time I come across an element that feels authentic to the culture -- whether or not, as I said, I have much of a clue about the culture myself. Then comes a point where I happily give it up, grant that he's been able to make this world feel authentically depicted for me, and go on reading the story without that in the forefront of my brain as it was when I began. When I was writing The Salt Roads, I was writing almost entirely outside my experience. I didn't have the feel of 18th century Haiti at my fingertips to be able to create unconscious markers of authenticity, much less conscious ones. Research will only take you so far, and then you have to go back to self, identify as much as you can with the culture based on what you know about it and about humans, and write what you know. I didn't think I had a hope in hell of making my Haiti feel real to a Haitian reader (even presuming that reader knew enough about 18th Century Haiti to judge). But I wanted at least to not make my depiction irritating. You know what it's like when someone tries to imitate your accent and every syllable that's not quite right just sets your teeth on edge? I didn't want to do the equivalent of that in text. Yet I didn't want to go too far; I didn't want to homogenize my Haiti until it lost its uniqueness altogether. I'm quite suspicious of that whole notion that sounds to me like, 'we're all human, so your differences from me -- and by corollary, the effect that society's reponses to them have on how you navigate the world -- aren't worth acknowledging.' So, I did my best, and I got guidance from some extremely forbearing Haitians, and I forged ahead. And every time someone from Haiti tells me that they enjoyed The Salt Roads, my spirit does a little happy dance.
Problem is, cultures have sub-cultures. I've lived for 30+ years in Toronto, and though I'm often desperately broke, my socio-economic background is more or less middle class. If I were going to write about a rich, male devout Catholic from New Brunswick, I'd have just as much a job of work as I did when writing about 18th Century Haiti.
Another problem is, people's experiences differ. What one person from a culture sees as authentic detail about that culture may seem totally inaccurate to someone else from that culture, and they can easily both be right. So seeking approval and imprimatur from people from that culture isn't going to be that dependable a strategy. On top of that, you may have deliberately taken some departures from that culture for your own creative purposes, which are equally legitimate. I still get people telling me that the term is "moko jumbie," not "mako jumbie." I know that, but in Midnight Robber, I was playing around with the possible origins of the term. So no matter what you do, you don't know whether your work is going to be generally well received or not until you release it into the world. But is that so different from the risk you take no matter what your book is about or where it's set?
And then there's that whole issue of writing a good story as well. You're not writing a sociology or history textbook, you're writing fiction. It has some different benchmarks for merit than a textbook would, and good story is one of the highest of them, if not the highest.
Oh, and what about that vague word "authentic" that I keep throwing around, even though something about it is making me uncomfortable? I haven't examined my use of the word in this context. Am I just using it as a somewhat arbitrary divider so that I don't have to think much as I go about the process of sorting things into or out of the basket labelled "authentic"? What in hell does "authentic" mean, really? Even were we able to decide on a commonly understood meaning for it in this context, is it actually a useful filter for judging some aspects of a work of fiction? I can't give anyone rules of thumb that will apply in every case where you're trying to judge whether something's cultural appropriation or not, and if it is, whether it's an appropriation that feels valid or not. It's a totally pomo discussion, and any declarations one might make feel fractal and changing, rather than logical or linear. As a writer trying to figure it all out in terms of what I write, I find that kind of exciting.
(I know that at least one of my blog readers is probably shaking her head at me going all what she calls "cringingly academic-liberal" again. I kinda know what she means, and I think she's correct; I do do that. Sometimes I just gotta let the beast out. Though I'd hope for something more radical than merely liberal.))
And now I'm *really* behind on the rest of my day. Later!
Submitted by Thomas Armstrong (not verified) on October 31, 2007 - 8:35pm.
Nalo, thanks for that … it was very interesting hearing your views on the subject. When I read Buckell’s post I felt quite sad that he or any other author should feel the need to post pictures of his family to confirm his ethnicity. Initially I reacted with anger towards the people who had prompted him to make his family history public, as if knowing that his father was dark would “authenticate” his work. From my experience, a person’s skin colour is a very poor indicator of racial or cultural bias. BTW I have not once read a piece of good writing only to find out later that the author did not describe his characters or their story authentically. In fact I’m beginning to think it’s impossible to do one without the other … readers are very good at telling the difference.
After reading your post I’m left to wonder what drove those people to question Buckell’s racial makeup. I now feel some sympathy for all involved. I’m beginning to think that the issue of “Appropriation of Voice” should be viewed from a different angle. Historically, at least in Canada, the publication of “Black Literature” … I hate that term … was a long and painful process. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for those authors on the forefront. Now every major publisher in Canada publishes work about and by people of African descent, but still, in a uniquely Canadian way, the intolerant, dismissive attitude remains. Try approaching a publisher with a story set in the West Indies or about West Indians … they’ll tell you, indirectly, that they’ve published their quota of “Black Literature” for the year, or that they have their stable of “Black” writers. If that’s not dismissive, I don’t know what is. Can’t a work be judged on the quality of its writing. Under the pretext of equality, a wonderfully abused term in our fair land, these publishers pat themselves on the back for having given voice to ethnic literature while at the same time treating the same work as second class writing. I recently attended a writer’s work shop where the senior editor of a major Canadian publisher lamented the passing of true Canadian literature and another person, a noted magazine editor and writer, suggested that the granting of the Giller had become a political process, as if it wasn’t always, and that a multiple winner of that prize wrote in a colonial English that was 50 years out of date. Given this attitude by the powerful elites I can see why people who are generally disenfranchised would wish to protect their hard-won turf, but this is exactly what the people in positions of power want. They can pretend to be inclusive but at the same time they can keep the barbarians at bay.
Submitted by Thomas (not verified) on November 1, 2007 - 9:29am.
Nalo, I've just read your last post on Buckell's site and it's made me rethink my position. I did indeed assume that the people who questioned the authenticity of his fiction where black. The more I think about this issue the more I think you're right ... they probably are not. At any rate, I think its time I got off my high horse stopped pontificating on a subject I know little about, and let both of us get back to more pressing issues. I'm sure we both have bigger fish to fry.
Thomas, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, whereas some of it contradicts my experience. I *have* approached both Canadian and American publishers with stories set in the West Indies and/or about West Indians, to generally positive response. Though perhaps it's because I've only recently become a writer (I'm counting ten years as recent). A Canadian publisher was interested in Midnight Robber, as I recall. It was a small press with a high representation of people of colour. I haven't heard or understood a publisher who turned me down to be insinuating that they've already published their quota of [insert affinity group here] writers. But other people have had that experience. I have encountered a related phenomenon, though; a publisher turns someone down by comparing that person's work to that of another [insert affinity group here] writer they do publish. Maybe they say they were looking for something more along those lines, or they feel that that person's writing flowed better, or something. Sometimes that response is a function of prejudice, e.g. maybe the manuscript they're rejecting was not written in what has become the accepted mainstream convention for [i.a.g.h.] writing, so mistakenly they see it as not legitimate. But sometimes what they're trying to say is that they don't think that the manuscript they received was strong enough. True, their markers for strong writing vis-a-vis that manuscript may well come out of ignorance and may be inappropriate. That's very likely. (I know of one case where a black American editor told a (light-skinned) black Caribbean writer that she clearly knew nothing about black history and cultures. In fact it was the editor who knew nothing about Caribbean history and cultures; the writer has years of experience of both. If I remember correctly, the publishing house gave her another editor). But it's also true that most of the submissions that publishers get are not strong writing. And many publishing houses are better informed than they were, not to mention that the people they employ increasingly represent a broad range of cultures. So perhaps that manuscript rejection is not being made from ignorance or bias. Perhaps the writing *isn't* strong enough. It's a tough one for a writer to unpick, when both prejudice and unpleasant truth are equally likely. And when there are so many other reasons that manuscripts are rejected. Maybe it's simply not what they publish. Worse yet, you can get both at once; the editor doesn't know what s/he's talking about *and* the manuscript isn't working. What in hell is an emerging writer going to do then? They may need the guidance of external assessment as their own skills at assessing their work grow, but they can't necessarily trust what they're hearing. It's no picnic for editors, either, the ones who try to figure out whether something is bad writing, or whether it's coming from an aesthetic about which they're ignorant.
Submitted by Thomas Armstrong (not verified) on November 1, 2007 - 7:10pm.
Nalo, soon after I posted that rather long diatribe I realized that it was somewhat self-serving, so it’s probably best that I reveal something of my agenda. While I don’t retract anything I said, it is true that I’ve generalized from limited experience and I’ve certainly projected my own prejudices onto people and events. Tobias Buckell’s discussion hit a hot button for me. Given who I am and the type of material I write, I feel a special vulnerability around the issue of “Appropriation of Voice”. As to the quality of my writing, there is no debate … it’s not good enough yet. Sometime ago I realized that the issue of publishers rejecting or accepting material out of cultural bias cuts both ways. I certainly don’t want my work published solely because of a sympathetic treatment of a particular culture or place. Unless the work stands on its own as a well written it’s better that it never be published.
Submitted by David Bellamy (not verified) on November 1, 2007 - 1:27pm.
All this points up to me why I will most likely never write fiction seriously. I feel like an outsider in every culture I know of. In some cases, I want to learn more about a culture; in others I am glad I have escaped. So, any culture I might ever try to write about would be a synthetic construct. I don't understand any real cultures, no matter how much I experience or read.
(I am very happy being a mathematician, and it pleases me greatly to be able to participate in discussions like this with writers whom I admire and like.)
Thanks for the link Nalo!
You're welcome!
Appropriation of Voice
Thomas, of course! I hadn't
Thomas, of course! I hadn't thought to link Toby's post to the whole Gordian knot that is the issue of appropriation of voice, but you're quite right. I began a post a few days ago on that very topic, but I realised it'd be an essay, and I don't have time for it right now with a novel deadline imminent. I do care, in some way, that Mittelholzer and Lamming are Caribbeans writing about the Caribbean. Except when I don't care. When a work sucks me in and feels authentic and has me eagerly turning every page to get to the next, then the writer's race, ethnicity, identity, cultural background, socio-economic background, sexuality, gender, etc., while still of interest to me if the author cares to make them known, are not issues in terms of the artistic merit of the work. I have that reaction to lots of Ian Mcdonald's work.
It occurs to me that where I do know the writer's background, it can affect how much trust about authenticity I'm willing to grant them as I open the book. When someone like Edgar Mittelholzer writes about Guyana, Trinidad, England, etc. I'm not thinking to question his depiction of them because I know he's spent long years living in them. In terms of earning my trust as a reader, he begins with a point in his favour. But I may be making a mistake by granting that point off the bat, because perhaps he's misinformed or not perceptive about the aspect of the culture that he chooses to depict, and I may not recognize that. When someone like Ian McDonald writes about Africa, India and Brazil (and here I'm presuming that Ian's not lived long years in any of those places. I may well be totally wrong), I do scrutinize the story more closely for elements that feel like markers of authenticity. The irony being that I haven't lived in Africa, India, or Brazil, so what the hell do I know about whether he's depicted them authentically? Would I recognise such a marker if it bit me on the ass? Often I wouldn't. So my response is not logical, and is not the same right across the board. But art is unquantifiable like that. All I know is, with much of Ian's work set in cultures that I assume are largely foreign to him, I might start with a certain amount of skepticism, but I relax a little bit more every time I come across an element that feels authentic to the culture -- whether or not, as I said, I have much of a clue about the culture myself. Then comes a point where I happily give it up, grant that he's been able to make this world feel authentically depicted for me, and go on reading the story without that in the forefront of my brain as it was when I began. When I was writing The Salt Roads, I was writing almost entirely outside my experience. I didn't have the feel of 18th century Haiti at my fingertips to be able to create unconscious markers of authenticity, much less conscious ones. Research will only take you so far, and then you have to go back to self, identify as much as you can with the culture based on what you know about it and about humans, and write what you know. I didn't think I had a hope in hell of making my Haiti feel real to a Haitian reader (even presuming that reader knew enough about 18th Century Haiti to judge). But I wanted at least to not make my depiction irritating. You know what it's like when someone tries to imitate your accent and every syllable that's not quite right just sets your teeth on edge? I didn't want to do the equivalent of that in text. Yet I didn't want to go too far; I didn't want to homogenize my Haiti until it lost its uniqueness altogether. I'm quite suspicious of that whole notion that sounds to me like, 'we're all human, so your differences from me -- and by corollary, the effect that society's reponses to them have on how you navigate the world -- aren't worth acknowledging.' So, I did my best, and I got guidance from some extremely forbearing Haitians, and I forged ahead. And every time someone from Haiti tells me that they enjoyed The Salt Roads, my spirit does a little happy dance.
Problem is, cultures have sub-cultures. I've lived for 30+ years in Toronto, and though I'm often desperately broke, my socio-economic background is more or less middle class. If I were going to write about a rich, male devout Catholic from New Brunswick, I'd have just as much a job of work as I did when writing about 18th Century Haiti.
Another problem is, people's experiences differ. What one person from a culture sees as authentic detail about that culture may seem totally inaccurate to someone else from that culture, and they can easily both be right. So seeking approval and imprimatur from people from that culture isn't going to be that dependable a strategy. On top of that, you may have deliberately taken some departures from that culture for your own creative purposes, which are equally legitimate. I still get people telling me that the term is "moko jumbie," not "mako jumbie." I know that, but in Midnight Robber, I was playing around with the possible origins of the term. So no matter what you do, you don't know whether your work is going to be generally well received or not until you release it into the world. But is that so different from the risk you take no matter what your book is about or where it's set?
And then there's that whole issue of writing a good story as well. You're not writing a sociology or history textbook, you're writing fiction. It has some different benchmarks for merit than a textbook would, and good story is one of the highest of them, if not the highest.
Oh, and what about that vague word "authentic" that I keep throwing around, even though something about it is making me uncomfortable? I haven't examined my use of the word in this context. Am I just using it as a somewhat arbitrary divider so that I don't have to think much as I go about the process of sorting things into or out of the basket labelled "authentic"? What in hell does "authentic" mean, really? Even were we able to decide on a commonly understood meaning for it in this context, is it actually a useful filter for judging some aspects of a work of fiction? I can't give anyone rules of thumb that will apply in every case where you're trying to judge whether something's cultural appropriation or not, and if it is, whether it's an appropriation that feels valid or not. It's a totally pomo discussion, and any declarations one might make feel fractal and changing, rather than logical or linear. As a writer trying to figure it all out in terms of what I write, I find that kind of exciting.
(I know that at least one of my blog readers is probably shaking her head at me going all what she calls "cringingly academic-liberal" again. I kinda know what she means, and I think she's correct; I do do that. Sometimes I just gotta let the beast out. Though I'd hope for something more radical than merely liberal.))
And now I'm *really* behind on the rest of my day. Later!
Nalo, thanks for that
You could be right
Thomas, I agree with a lot
Thomas, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, whereas some of it contradicts my experience. I *have* approached both Canadian and American publishers with stories set in the West Indies and/or about West Indians, to generally positive response. Though perhaps it's because I've only recently become a writer (I'm counting ten years as recent). A Canadian publisher was interested in Midnight Robber, as I recall. It was a small press with a high representation of people of colour. I haven't heard or understood a publisher who turned me down to be insinuating that they've already published their quota of [insert affinity group here] writers. But other people have had that experience. I have encountered a related phenomenon, though; a publisher turns someone down by comparing that person's work to that of another [insert affinity group here] writer they do publish. Maybe they say they were looking for something more along those lines, or they feel that that person's writing flowed better, or something. Sometimes that response is a function of prejudice, e.g. maybe the manuscript they're rejecting was not written in what has become the accepted mainstream convention for [i.a.g.h.] writing, so mistakenly they see it as not legitimate. But sometimes what they're trying to say is that they don't think that the manuscript they received was strong enough. True, their markers for strong writing vis-a-vis that manuscript may well come out of ignorance and may be inappropriate. That's very likely. (I know of one case where a black American editor told a (light-skinned) black Caribbean writer that she clearly knew nothing about black history and cultures. In fact it was the editor who knew nothing about Caribbean history and cultures; the writer has years of experience of both. If I remember correctly, the publishing house gave her another editor). But it's also true that most of the submissions that publishers get are not strong writing. And many publishing houses are better informed than they were, not to mention that the people they employ increasingly represent a broad range of cultures. So perhaps that manuscript rejection is not being made from ignorance or bias. Perhaps the writing *isn't* strong enough. It's a tough one for a writer to unpick, when both prejudice and unpleasant truth are equally likely. And when there are so many other reasons that manuscripts are rejected. Maybe it's simply not what they publish. Worse yet, you can get both at once; the editor doesn't know what s/he's talking about *and* the manuscript isn't working. What in hell is an emerging writer going to do then? They may need the guidance of external assessment as their own skills at assessing their work grow, but they can't necessarily trust what they're hearing. It's no picnic for editors, either, the ones who try to figure out whether something is bad writing, or whether it's coming from an aesthetic about which they're ignorant.
Nalo, soon after
I certainly don’t want my
I certainly don’t want my work published solely because of a sympathetic treatment of a particular culture or place.
Hallelujah and amen to that, Thomas!
Why I am not a fiction writer
All this points up to me why I will most likely never write fiction seriously. I feel like an outsider in every culture I know of. In some cases, I want to learn more about a culture; in others I am glad I have escaped. So, any culture I might ever try to write about would be a synthetic construct. I don't understand any real cultures, no matter how much I experience or read.
(I am very happy being a mathematician, and it pleases me greatly to be able to participate in discussions like this with writers whom I admire and like.)
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