Fiction vs. memoir and the role of the imagination

In several of his Zuckerman novels, Philip Roth addresses head-on the slippery connection between the life experiences of an author and his/her fiction. In Zuckerman, Roth, with likely intentional irony, has created a protagonist, whose literary (if not life) history would seem to closely parallel that of Roth, himself. Zuckerman’s first published stories, like Roth’s, are viewed by many readers as portraying Jews in stereotyped and unfavorable ways. Zuckerman’s first novel, Carnovsky, like Roth’s first successful novel, Portnoy’s Complaint is controversial for its sexual content. And both Zuckerman’s stories and Carnovsky are seen by others (including most disturbingly, his family) as being thinly disguised memoirs, not fiction.

Roth writes, again not without irony:

“It’s Carnovsky!” “Hey, careful Carnovsky, they arrest people for that!” “Hey want to see my underwear, Gil?”…the easiest thing was to pretend that he was hearing things, to realize that it was happening in a world that didn’t exist. They had mistaken impersonation for confession and were calling out to a character who lived in a book. Zuckerman tried taking it as praise—he had made real people believe Carnovsky real too—but in the end he pretended he was only himself, and with his quick, small steps hurried on. (Zuckerman Unbound)

To other characters in the Zuckerman novels, Carnovsky is Zuckerman, just as to many readers of the Zuckerman novels Zuckerman is Roth. But, is he? Despite Roth’s portrayal of Zuckerman as his alter ego, perhaps even as his doppelganger, Zuckerman is, ultimately, Roth’s creation, a product of his imagination. He is not Roth, himself.

At any rate, that is how I see the distinction between authors of fiction and their fictional creations. While many authors, myself included, base characters and events in their novels on themselves and on their own observations and life experiences, ultimately, these characters are products of the authors’ imaginations; they are not the authors, themselves.

As I wrote in the preface to this webnovel (entitled "Fiction is Life Re-imagined"):

Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely intentional….Still, this webnovel is neither memoir nor roman à clef. None of the characters or their experiences are based on any one individual. Yet parts of each character are, most likely, in us all.

–PHK

Links
Philip Roth: The Zuckerman Books, Ken Gordon in salon.com
Short Story Criticism: Philip Roth in eNotes.com
Permanent Groping Ruth Franklin, a critical review of Exit Ghost in the New Republic


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