[F_MINOR] GG: Solitude Trilogy Question

["Anne M. Marble" <amarble@SFF.NET>]

I haven't had a chance to read the section on the Solitude Trilogy in the
new GG biography. I'm looking forward to it. This relates more to what
previous biographers said.

One thing I remembered about the complaints other biographers made is that
GG took portions of interviews from different people and spliced them
together to make it look as if these people were talking with each other,
or even having arguments, though they had never meant. The biographers
acted as if this make it artificial. Which I suppose misses the point. They
were expecting the Solitude Trilogy to be "Nanook of the North," but it was
more like a collage combined with counterpoint. It was an artistic
statement. Yes, it was more about Glenn Gould than the people in the
interviews. Wasn't that the point? (Besides, didn't experts later figure
out that some of the "documentary" scenes in "Nanook of the North" were
faked?! :( But what is truth? Some of the most famous Civil War photographs
were faked, as it turns out, but they still tell their story, don't they?)

After all, don't other artists do this sort of thing all the time? Graphic
artists often combine images from a wide variety of sources. And reporters
do this, if they use quotations. So do nonfiction writers at times.
Sometimes it's necessary simply to condense the information and make it
more relatable. But some writers do this to make a point.

I think part of the difficulty comes because we're used to artists doing
this in other media, but not with the spoken word. It takes a while to
figure out what's going on when listening to contrapuntal radio. Even
people who understand what GG was trying to do often have a hard time
listening to it. We're used to seeing contrasting and complementary images
displayed in many different ways, but we can't process the spoken word in
the same way.

P.S. The other day, I was writing a column based on reader feedback for All
About Romance. I took comments from the boards and lists we own and
arranged them by topic. I kept related comments together, but also, if two
people have opposing views, I often put them right after another. Sometimes
they are even displayed in blocks of text opposite each other (which looks
really cool). While I was doing this, I found myself thinking of The
Solitude Trilogy! :-> Yes, it's artificial as these people may be
responding to different posts -- but it _works_.

------
Anne M. Marble
ATBF Columnist All About Romance -- http://www.likesbooks.com
Holly Lisle's Forward Motion Writing Site: http://www.fmwriters.com
My Blog: http://gorokandwulf.blogspot.com/
Join Neopets! -- http://www.neopets.com/refer.phtml?username=critteranne

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