Word: gornick
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...tell that tale, I soon discovered, I had to find the right tone of voice; the one I habitually lived with would not do at all: it whined it grated, it accused, above all it accused.” Yet once again, Gornick does not show any of the work that flowed from this newfound understanding, and her insight remains theoretical...
...composing the eulogy had helped the speaker clarify the subject of her speech and her own relation to it. By doing this, the writer constructed a narrative persona who was set apart from the subject and even from the writer. To Gornick this persona is a necessary aspect of personal nonfiction. In fiction and poetry, characters provide “surrogates” to whom the writer can ascribe the unacceptable yearnings or embarrassing character flaws they seek to express, while in nonfiction the narrator must reveal these flaws within herself. The flaws cannot be once removed as they...
...uniquely personal into something that can be felt and understood by others. The narrator becomes the link between writer and reader, allowing the latter to feel the truths that the writer tries to express through the story, without the self-righteous whining or high-mindedness of the writer interfering. Gornick uses George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” as an example of the importance of narrative voice. In life, Orwell was often an ugly and brutish man, falling prey to his own bitter insecurities, sexism, rabid anti-communism and other flaws...
...just the first 10 pages Gornick is able to lucidly illustrate the importance of the complex relationship between subject and narrator and lay the groundwork to delve into how to understand and express this relationship. But in some ways Gornick misses this golden opportunity. As a premier essayist with a large body of work to her name, Gornick has a vast supply of personal essays which she could draw upon to explain how she searches for this narrative persona in her own life. Who better to explain where she triumphed and where she fell short than the writer herself...
There are times when Gornick appears to be doing just that. Early in the book she describes a book she wrote about Egypt early in her career which her lack of understanding of herself and her situation hurt the story. “Who was I? Who were they? Where was I, and what was it all about? The problem was I didn’t really want the answers to these questions.” There is promise in her recollections, but they seem to stop there. Gornick never provides any quotes or passages from her book, and without...