Instead, I was interested in what I guess I could call narrative indeterminacy, in questioning the apparent, taken-for-granted authority of any particular representation of the events in question.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.
I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority.
I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
I think there are narratives going on all the time that we think of as tangential - up until they turn out to be deciding factors in our lives.
People need a narrative, and if there isn't one on offer, they make one up.
There's no relationship to the narrative anymore. People want their own interpretation of history. We're compartmentalizing, forgetting what came directly before, like it's not a big deal. That, to me, is a crime.
The stories I write are often literal to events that have happened or observations that I've made, and sometimes they're fantastical.
In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.
If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable rather than its literal narrative.
No opposing quotes found.