Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
I really enjoyed reading Lauren Slater’s Lying because of the range of experimentation within the text. The problem I often have with memoir is the tendency some writers have to be overly poignant and important about their life stories. Personally, I’m not a real fan of that type of memoir. That’s why I really appreciated Slater’s ability to tell her story with a really specific kind of coherence and intelligence. She is able to look at the experiences within her life from a critical as well as personal point of view. The fact that she acknowledges that memory and perspective can be flawed and gives multiple suggestions throughout the memoir of what the truth might be gave me a lot of food for thought. These ideas also helped me construct my own first essay for this class in which I too question the idea of what is real and what is not. In other words, Slater’s book gave me an awful lot to think about, as well as things that will contribute to my own work.tI loved the moments of experimentation within the text. For example the one line “I exaggerate” that makes up an entire chapter. Separating specific lines and phrases is a trick often used in more experimental poetry as well, so I am always interested in works that play with structure and format. Other great moments are when Slater introduces academic or scientific language into the text. An example of this would be chapter five, which reads like a scientific study or case study. It made me think about how illness can bring these things which most people never read or think about unless in the field of science or medicine, to the forefront of people’s lives. All of a sudden these complex words, facts, statistics, and ideas manifest themselves in a person’s actual life, in reality. It can be an overwhelming thing. It also reminds me of the two friends I’ve had who became doctors. As they went through their training they both sort of became hypochondriacs, convinced they had a different incurable disease every other week. Of course, they knew it wasn’t true, but one of them admitted to me once that reading and learning about the horrible things that can happen to the human body makes you worried about what is going on in your own at the same time. To get back on track a bit, another style move that I loved was the times in the text when Slater used numbered lists. This happens, for example, in chapter seven which is basically a large list and also a letter from Slater to her editor on marketing the book. It’s one of my favorite chapters in the book. On the one hand, it’s kind of hilarious and fun to think that someone would actually write this kind of quirky random letter to an actual editor at a publishing house. On the other hand, it is kind of scary sometimes, how odd we writers can be, both in professional and personal lives, and how those lives can so often intersect when we’re not paying enough attention and keeping them in line—Or is it when we’re paying too much attention?—in any case, writers are a bunch of odd birds and god knows what editors think about some of us in our stranger moments.tI guess that’s the fun thing about lying in fact and Lying the book...Slater shows us that there is room for experimentation in both as well as truth in both.
(Homework response, November 7th, 2011)Lauren Slater is trying to challenge the reader's concepts of reality and truth in her book Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir. The idea of the story potentially being false is first presented in the introduction, which is written by a fictional psychologist. I think it is interesting that she included this, because if she hadn't the reveal of her potential lie about epilepsy would have come more gradual. The first place where she admits to adding something to the story was in chapter three when she embellishes the story by falling into the grave, and then quickly confesses that that did not literally happen. I liked how she goes on from there to gradually make us question more sections of the narrative, such as the paper that may or may not have been written by her neurologist, and accumulating with her even implying that she might have been lying about epilepsy this whole time. However I felt like the introduction might have undercut this accumulation by being too open about the possibility of the epilepsy being false. Perhaps she felt it was necessary to prevent people from trusting the narrator too much in the beginning, since she does say that when she handed the draft to strangers they took it too literally.In true postmodern from, she includes different types of narrative in this book, which I enjoyed. These include the introduction by the fictional psychologist, Hayward Krieger, the paper which may or may not have been written by her neurologist Dr. Neu and the letter she addressed to her publisher on how to market this book. Each of these sections serve to question the nature to truth in the narrative. I already talked about the introduction and touched on the Dr. Neu letter. The letter she addressed to her publisher lays out some of her intentions in writing this book, including the purposeful ambiguity. She includes three ways that the book can be read, without hinting at which one is literally true. Also, she points out that she is not a fact and that metaphor can reveal character that fact cannot. At the end of the letter, she is almost pleading with the publisher to publish it as nonfiction, which is similar to how she pleads with the reader in the last chapter.This plead on her readers comes tied in the with AA members who think Lauren is in denial of her alcoholism. I was intrigued by Sandy's analysis that they portrayed that way to show that were unable to see any truth other than their own. Elaine says “Denial always kicks in when we get too close to the truth,” implying that they view the truth as absolute and objective. She swiftly turns from the AA retreat to addressing the reader, both denying that she had epilepsy and begging us to believe that she does have epilepsy.
What do You think about Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2001)?
In LYING, the controversial but brilliant Lauren Slater takes the memoir genre and flips it on its head. I love writers who are brave enough to experiment with the conventions of a genre, some with more success than others. But, Slater does just what she sets out to do—she writes a metaphorical memoir and makes her readers decide for themselves what is the definition of “truth” in creative nonfiction.LYING is Slater’s coming-of-age memoir, exploring her epilepsy that deeply affects her perception of her experiences. So right off the bat, she tells you that she has a psychological disorder that makes her an extremely unreliable narrator…in a memoir, where you depend on the narrator to guide you through their true experiences. It’s not a simple book to read because you’re constantly trying to figure out what is true and what is only “true” in Slater’s distorted perception. Memoir is such a popular genre because there is some satisfaction in knowing that what you are reading is REAL. Slater takes a giant risk by writing a “memoir” that isn’t REAL. At first, it’s frustrating and off-putting. But, at some point while you’re struggling to figure out what is true and what is “true,” you realize that it doesn’t matter (which is what I’m betting was Slater’s point from the beginning). Slater ends up writing something more sincere and honest by lying than she would have if she stuck to the facts.
—Writer's Relief
This was a tricky book to read, because the author/narrator tells you right off the bat that maaaaaaybe she made some things up and maaaaaybe she didn't. Which is, I guess, the truth about most memoirs, but Slater likes to remind you now and then that what you just read might have only happened in her mind. Very tricksy, but not as off-putting as it might sound. This self-consciousness comes off less as po-mo defense tactics than honest representation, because central to the memoir is her seizure disorder, which, though a physiological condition, can deep affect perception and psychology. If you just let her tell the story the way she wants, you still perhaps better access her feelings, her insecurities, her personal truths. So in a way it's a memoir about memoir-writing. I keep defending it because it is geniunely interesting, but sometimes it makes me batty trying to decide if it was freshman b.s. or genius.
—Kate
I absolutely hated this book. But I might be lying when I say I hated this book. Because sometimes a lie is true and sometimes a lie is just a flat out lie. Sometimes a lie is liminal and sneaky, a covert sort of veracity, a very Heideggerian truth, a Stephen Colbert "truthiness" sort of truth. It is a parlor trick predicated on a delicate tissue of confabulations and exaggerations. Oh, and did I mention the fact that I am a former supermodel? This may, or may not be true. But I "feel" as if I may have been a supermodel, so in a larger metaphorical sense I very well may have been a supermodel. There you go.
—Taube
