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A Look Into Autofiction...
As a writer, a large portion of my personal experiences find a way to integrate themselves into my fiction and morph my works into little pockets of who I am. I’ve been writing like this for ages and only recently discovered that not only is there a word for this type of writing but it's a growing genre in many literary communities. The word you might ask? Autofiction.
The term is mainly self explanatory but it can be confusing to imagine just what a work of Autofiction would look like. Autofiction is when the author writes about their own personal experiences from their own point of view but presents it as if a fictional character is the one experiencing it. Like all literary genres, there's a wide range of ways to write and experience it. A few examples are Frances Cannon’s visual essay “Vernal Thaw” and Herve Guibert’s novel “To the Friend who did not save my life.” These two works are about as different as night and day but both communicate the author’s personal journey in a highly fictionalized way. They talk about the authors experiencing their life like they would experience a fiction novel. In order for a piece of autofiction to succeed in being autofiction the author must accurately represent how their stream of inner thoughts flows and present that just as they would present the mind of a truly fictional character.
In “To the friend who did not save my life” by Herve Guibert, he translates his inner thoughts onto the page by having what seem like sporadically written chapters. Every chapter is a different length and they don’t always directly tie into each other. It feels like someone making a note in their head of everything that seems important and is just as chaotic to read as I’m sure it was to think. His story is about his AIDS diagnosis and how he copes with it as well as the recent death of his friend who also was diagnosed with the disease. Within the first few chapters he talks about how he escaped the disease and how he seemed like the only one, this feeling is something the COVID19 pandemic has made relatable and that only makes his story more impactful and devastating. Fictional stories are often full of tragedy and the comedy amongst it but as I read this beautiful piece of autofiction I began to wish that it was actual fiction and not something a real person had to experience. Guibert continuously breaks the fourth wall with phrases like “I tell myself I’ve got only seven days, exactly seven days to tell the story of my illness, and of course I’ll never meet the deadline…” (Guibert page 53) where he makes the reader uncomfortably aware that Guibert himself is a real human being and not the fictional character he’s been presenting himself as.
Suddenly, “To the Friend” feels like you’re reading a death note for someone you don’t know and you sit there with it in your hands and you wonder if you're allowed to keep reading it as it’s such a raw portrayal of someone's last months. To me, this moment of realization that the author is human and exists out in the world is the most impressive part of autofiction. While you read it feels like nothing more than a work of true fiction but every once and a while the author will break the fourth wall and you’re confronted with the fact that this isn’t true fiction and you’re reading someone's life. “Vernal Thaw” by Frances Cannon, is more upfront about the fact that this work is autofiction so the realization that the author is a person isn’t so violent but nevertheless impactful. Cannon’s way of writing autofiction feels like it’s slightly fiction even to Cannon herself.
In “Vernal Thaw”, Cannon describes a vivid and complex dream she had and states “How can I write about a dream that never even took place— yet it feels real?” While Cannon is in fact a part of the dream and she did experience it herself she has a sort of detachment from it as she understands that this dream is an escape or distraction. Cannon blatantly states that this is a work of autofiction several times and while that wasn’t my favorite feature it did add to her detachment from this experience her character is going through. It seems as though Cannon is processing her own experiences and emotions by projecting them onto a fictional version of herself and this is evident in the story. While in “To the friend” Guibert violently throws us, the readers, into the inner depths of his mind, Cannon’s “Vernal Thaw” prefers to keep us far from the action.
Autofiction is filled with hindsight as the author watches themselves go through life and it adds another kind of depth to the writing. Unlike a memoir or an autobiography, a work of autofiction truly feels like you’ve stepped into the mind of the main character (the author). I’ve always been an avid fiction reader and works of autofiction seem no different until you look at the cover and see that your main character and the author share a name.
Herve Guibert's 'To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life'
Frances Cannon- The Creator of 'Vernal Thaw'
Citations
Cannon, Frances. “Autofiction: A Visual Essay by Frances Cannon.” Fourth Genre, 2021, https://fourthgenre.byu.edu/autofiction-cannon/.
Guibert, Herve. To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life. Semiotext(e), 1990.
Kennell, Vicki R. “Questions for Genre Analysis - Owl // Purdue Writing Lab.” Purdue Owl, 2020, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/graduate_writing/documents/Questions-for-Genre-Analysis.pdf. Lorentzen, Christian. “Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner, Tao Lin: How 'Auto' Is 'Autofiction'?” Vulture, Vulture, 11 May 2018, https://www.vulture.com/2018/05/how-auto-is-autofiction.html.
Winter, Jessica. “Our Autofiction Fixation.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Mar. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/books/review/autofiction-my-dark-vanessa-american-dirt-the-need-kate-elizabeth-russell-jeanine-cummins-helen-phillips.html.
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