The Situation and the Story (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Vivian Gornick
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Memoirs, literary criticism, and literary theory
- Time of Work: The nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- Setting: Europe, North America, and Africa
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Memoir
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, Africa or Africans, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Europe or Europeans, Literature, Writing, Literary criticism
This engrossing little book is part memoir, part literary analysis, and part instructional text. In a clear and evocative style, Vivian Gornick reveals the secret of successfully turning the situation, her term for the raw material of a memoir or an essay, into the “story,” the argument of a narrative that is focused by a coherent, created persona who has the authority to make the argument. Such a persona is, she writes, vital; it is the “instrument of . . . illumination.” No persona, no story. To achieve it, the writer must discover not only the occasion of one’s speaking but...
[The entire page is 1806 words long]
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