Assignment 1 "Merced"

I find the intro's assertion that "Merced" should be "required reading for all pre-med students" stifling. What does that mean? Why am I reading this if I am not a pre-med student? It seems to make the essay into something more, and yet less, than what it is. It makes it 'more' in the sense that 'nonfiction' just seems better--it is a moral fable, etc. (whatever you need it to be) but it's true. It's not just an Aesop's Fable or an Anderson fairy tale, which (I guess) many people have gotten disillusioned with lately ("It's not real! It didn't happen! It's about talking animals!" etc.).

However, the essay becomes 'less' when one realizes that, if it is "required reading", then that makes it into a sort of educative piece of writing, more "transactional" and informational than emotionally inspiring. But on to the piece. For the first three pages, Ofri was talking about how cocky she was to have done "the right thing" when she didn't even deserve credit for doing it. She hadn't thought of it out of any care for the patient, but rather because Bellevue was a "teaching institution" where one was "supposed to waste some money on exotic tests in order to learn (124)."

I began to wonder if this would be a tale about a "lucky break" one doctor experienced. But no. This is a serious story--a very serious story. The high point is when Ofri is "exhilarated" (i.e. "I loved the ICU"!!! p. 126) that there is some fascinating new diagnosis she can count herself in on--lyme disease in the city. She throws out medical jargon and struts around the pages until page 8, where she learns the truth--Mercedes is dying.

But let's back up a bit. The irony of the fact that Ofri talks about how "careful" her training has been up till now, compounded by her random chance in "diagnosing" the case, is heightened by the language that she uses in the first half of the story. It is lighthearted and conversational--as if she were telling a story and then, whoa, STOP. We learn that Mercedes is back. When I read this, I thought: "Well, no one deserves credit, except Nature." And that struck me as being the core of what this essay is about: Nature.

It's kind of like Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat", which is also (sort of) based on a true story and also deals with the arbitrariness of life in the face of cold, cruel Nature. When Ofri goes to say hello to Mercedes (after discovering that she is back in the hospital), Mercedes "had no recollection of [Ofri] (126)"--meaning that Nature doesn't care about our attachments to it, especially after we had neglected to acknowledge her power over us. There are moments that drive this point home--for example, when we sense the hollow arrogance of the medical establishment's machines, "breathing life into our critically ill patients" (127). But life is already there. The machines are just another part of it.

And when Ofri helplessly thinks that maybe Mercedes could use a "third" antibiotic, we realize that Nature doesn't need our help or input at all. It's quite heavy-handed in it's point, but that's okay. It's interesting and valid for everyone, not just doctors. Writers themselves can be arrogant with their use of real events and people in order to produce "art". There is another dimension here, that distinction between the false and the true, which is a sort of meta-nonfiction level Ofri is playing with.

When Ofri distinguishes between the "case" Mercedes and the "real" Mercedes, we sense her discomfort with the designations and, too, we worry about what/who is real in this story and in life. How would we treat a "case"? What would we do with a real person? Ofri takes us very deep, deep into hell, it would seem. When she goes on a walk, she notes columns that poke out like "portals into some dark netherworld" (130). The imagery stops being so fun and "light" and moves into earthy, "real" tones and descriptions: the family, coming to see Mercedes, is seen "like a landscape: a range of backs, with shadowed dips and peaks", and Ofri has to "see what was on the other side of them"(131).

But death is a part of Nature, and so it is only by allowing death to exist outside of her control that Ofri becomes one with Nature and is allowed to emerge from the netherworld of her real and imagined guilt. When Ofri relents to Nature, sobbing into the priest's tunic, she finally realizes that she has no control. It is as though religion, which is (admittedly) man-made, is a "thing" that helps comfort us against Nature, which does not comfort or care. Finally, when another patient is "coding" at the end of her shift, she has totally relented to the forces of Nature. "Bed 2 was coding, but somebody else was taking care of it (135)."

So what is the role of literary writing in all of this? Well, the doctor's world is not natural, and the world of literature that she is inhabiting with us is "natural", yet full of death and mystery. Therefore, literature/death makes her go deeper into what frightens her. Or maybe she cops out and heads for literary writing as another kind of "comforter" (much like the "false comfort" of religion earlier) which is as superficial as the medical hubris language she employed before.

And now, to tie it all up: what does "Merced" mean? Why is it shortened? It could be the first explanation that popped into my mind: that it is "cut off" the way that Mercedes' life was cut off, and for no reason, really, because nature wanted it to be that way. So I went and looked it up. Mercedes is also a town in Texas, and the name of an expensive car. "merced" is a town in California. Mercedes means: "mercies" (as in, Mary of the Mercies, in Catholic tradition), and Merced means "mercy" singular, or "grace." (etymonline.com). So I was wrong--the title just means that mercy or grace was bestowed upon Ofri, who was given a second chance to save lives, make the right diagnoses, etc. And if I am treating her "nonfiction, true" story a bit lightly, just think about the way that she treated that poor girl's case, and everything evens out.

Finally, the ending is awful--way too "wrapped up" for nonfiction. Ofri might have ended on page 136, with the "unknown etiology" of Mercedes' death. But no--she has to go on about life and death blah blah etc. until she's made the reader forget what he or she was reading in the first place. I like a cold, hard finish. But that's just me.

from STYLE: COMING SOON (I have not yet received the 8th edition, I'm sorry, I will post it with the next assignment if that's okay?)

from SHADOWBOXING: pp. ix-4

Creative nonfiction is defined and contrasted with fiction in the intro and first section of the "Memoir" chapter. I learned a lot that made sense but that I had never stopped to think about before. Such as, in nonfiction the author is not invisible. Yikes! So I can't hide behind characters? No matter how personal or bizarre it gets, fictional happenings can always be "explained away" as just that--stories (most people seem to think my stories are EXACTLY drawn from my life, which is hilarious. But if I reveal to them how much I made up, they feel slighted, as if I were tricking them--which is the point).

The difference between the genres feels vast and yet nonexistant. Let me explain using the painter/photographer simile from the text, because for a fiction writer, as long as you are sane and still creatively okay you are fine (the painter can just use the real landscape as a guideline for his/her imaginary landscape). But creative nonfiction depends more heavily upon the material, it seems. Or on selecting the material. Or maybe not. I guess someone could write about living in a white cell well, if they were amazing.

So the interesting thing is all of the similarities between the two "genres" to me. The most striking difference (which is not in this book) is the James Frey or Truman Capote thing--in nonfiction, people expect you to tell the truth, and they get really angry when they find inconsistencies. I guess calling writing "fiction" is more of a disclaimer than anything--"Don't go poking into my life, ya hear?" The hardest thing to figure out in the Memoir section is exactly WHY people connect more with "the real". I don't (I would like to believe that I connect with good writing, natch) and it's part of why I have always loved and hated Truman Capote--I wish he'd written more fiction, but then his nonfiction is so good, and yet probably full of lies. That tell the truth so well. But I am getting into literary journalism . . .

Memory itself is "contradictory and subjective". But there is SUCH value in trying, as best as one is able, to tell the truth. It will be a remarkable excercise for me because, well, I'm a fiction writer and I'm not used to being able to discount everything as a fable. I actually do have a real life. And I like writing best that feels truthful--whether it's fiction or non, there's an element of truth that one can either reveal (or fake, in fiction). And so the challenge will be to really tell the truth, and then decide what to do with it.

from "This Boy's Life" (Wolff):

This story reminded me of my own road trip stories from childhood. They are the richest, most interesting times I remember from being a kid. And what I like about Wolff is the way that he makes the story structured almost like a fiction story--with the metaphors on trouble constantly cropping up ("Every couple of hours the Nash Rambler boiled over", 7) and wanting impossible things ("...she and her mother lived a dream life...in which they played the part of sisters", 7), and so forth. Starting out with the story about the truck running off the road was powerful, and it underscored the runaway inertia that seemed to be keeping Wolff's mother running toward trouble even when she wanted to stop--she's "lost her brakes". The interesting thing I took from it was that Wolff's mother, like many poor people or gamblers who keep chasing the same dream and messing up because it's so ridiculous, is not poor at all (or didn't use to be--she grew up in a house with a turret!). So it highlights the gulf between the rich and the poor even as it shows how alike they really are, and brings to the reader's mind the safe place to be nice, middle America. Or at least, that seems to be what the boy-Wolff wants subconsciously. He's too young to realize it yet, b/c he knows how to manipulate his mom and he gets caught up in her exhilarating enthusiasm. But there is an undercurrent of disdain/disillusionment that we see coming from the adult Wolff's POV, I think. Not sure.

from "The Liar's Club" (Karr):

Karr's writing is more condensed than Wolff's (who is more Hemingway-ish in his leaving out of details). Karr, on the other hand, tosses in everything. I liked the way that she used phrases like "canary-colored" and "an enormous black tear" to describe things and show the way that children think/act. The dialect was very real, of course (because it is). When she brought in the epic references to ate (12) I thought it was interesting, and tried to connect it to the piece as a whole, and came up with a meta-non-fiction sort of idea that Homeric, passionate anger is a "fictional" sort of thing and she is writing non-fiction, showing that nonfiction stories about creepy violent neighbors can be just as fascinating as wildly poetic epics, and even more scary and awe-inspiring.

I was also interested in the way that Karr kept trying to control everything. Karr tries to line up Junebugs (12) and they keep “waggling” everywhere (13). Also she is obsessed with who will take her and her sister home, and her relationship to her sister, and the power her sister and the sheriff, etc., have over her. It seems to be about the out-of-control-ness of being a child, but also about how out of control we all are even as adults. It is another meta-nonfictional thing—that she comments on the way that we try to control memory, but at times it is vague, etc.