WSJ hit on Menchu

[Charles Miller]

Anyone know whether Menchu intended her book as a piece of imaginative
anthropology, much in the style and genre of Carlos Castaneda? There is
obviously much precedence for rendering fictional accounts from research
and ethnographic data (look at Clifford Geertz's work on the role of
writing and the thematics used by anthropologists in _staging_ their
data). Melville's _Moby Dick_ was sold as a piece of non-fiction, if my
memory serves me right.

I know there are those who denigrate this blurring of fact/fiction, but
I think it has some validity within the context of literature. Of
course, one needs to also to ask _how much_ of her book is true. Is it
only the _autobiographical_ elements that are fictional? What about the
background of violence, poverty, and genocide she writes about? That is
unquestioned, is it not? I think Orwell's remark about art and
propaganda could go a long way in this context.

chuck miller


> The latest hit on Rigoberta Menchu comes from that notorious bastion of
> truth-telling, the Wall Street Journal editorial page. This screed's
> ingenious innovation: her "lies" might provide a pretext for violence!
> Anyone know who this Schwartz character is, and what the source of his
> expertise on "the Hispanic world" is?
>
> Doug
>