Suspending Belief: How I Can Now Enjoy Annie Dillard

I struggle with nonfictional narratives—be they memoir, historical, or informal essays in the vein of David Sedaris or Annie Dillard.  Reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek recently, I was finally able to articulate why: I struggle with the suspension of belief.  If the narrative recounted is supposed to be personal and “true”, then I don’t feel like I can properly connect to it without disturbing it.  In other words, if what Dillard is writing is a factual account, then I can nod, sympathize, say that must have been wonderful or that must have been awful, but I can’t make it my own without feeling like I’m trespassing on someone else’s property.  The same is true when a friend tells me a non-fictional story or I read a blog about someone’s day—I care, engage, but the story is never mine.  I never laugh at the non-fictional butt of jokes or sympathize with the non-fictional villain the way I would were they fictional.  I suspend judgment.  I let words be as literal as possible.  I pretend to see authorial intention.  In fact, my best friends and I are quick to turn out non-fictional stories into a series of what-ifs and imaginary alternatives.  That’s how we engage.  That’s how we connect. 

Unless it’s in a conversation about craft, I never want to know what is “non-fictional” about a piece.  Leave it out.  All of this is to say I felt great relief when a friend told me that Pilgrim is largely concocted and exaggerated and I therefore have a green light to read it as fiction—thank God!  No more need to suspend belief.