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Shipwrecked / Creative Non-Fiction
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From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 09:49:03 -0400
Steve Englefried writes: "
"
This issue of footnotes interests me a lot. Going back to last month's discussion, I really did not like the footnotes used in the historical fiction work, How I Became an American. They were used sparingly to explain a couple of tricky translation issues. However, they felt very didactic to me. Sort of like someone trying to explain a joke. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded them if they hadn't been so darn serious. (I adore, on the other hand, pomo footnotes that add witty tweaks to the text. One of my favorite adult writers who does this is David Foster Wallace as in his essay about a cruise, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", originally published in Harpers and now in a book of collected essays with the same title.)
As for nonfiction, I found Shipwreck to be very carefully written so was quite interested and surprised by Angelica's report. But, I must say, I did find the information at the back of the book a bit skimpy. Two books that provided me with the sort of indepth source material I like are Marc Aronson's Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado and Suzanne Jurmain's Freedom's Sons: The True Story of the Amistad Mutiny
(recommended to me by Joanna Ridge Long). Both books provide substantive back-of-the-book notes for each chapter, bibliographies and more. Since this is all at the back, readers can elect to look at the material at their leisure (or even never). The notes are not on the pages in question so they do not interrupt the flow of the text (as was the problem for me with How I Became an American). Yet they provide the sort of solid background material many readers crave.
I'm curious. How is the amount of support material at the back of the book decided upon? Is it a factor of the expected age of the reader? That is, was there less for Shipwrecked than Sir Walter Ralegh because of the different age groups? Frankly, I'd like to see more of it for both historical fiction and creative nonfiction. Monica
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Sun 07 Apr 2002 08:49:03 AM CDT
Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 09:49:03 -0400
Steve Englefried writes: "
"
This issue of footnotes interests me a lot. Going back to last month's discussion, I really did not like the footnotes used in the historical fiction work, How I Became an American. They were used sparingly to explain a couple of tricky translation issues. However, they felt very didactic to me. Sort of like someone trying to explain a joke. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded them if they hadn't been so darn serious. (I adore, on the other hand, pomo footnotes that add witty tweaks to the text. One of my favorite adult writers who does this is David Foster Wallace as in his essay about a cruise, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", originally published in Harpers and now in a book of collected essays with the same title.)
As for nonfiction, I found Shipwreck to be very carefully written so was quite interested and surprised by Angelica's report. But, I must say, I did find the information at the back of the book a bit skimpy. Two books that provided me with the sort of indepth source material I like are Marc Aronson's Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado and Suzanne Jurmain's Freedom's Sons: The True Story of the Amistad Mutiny
(recommended to me by Joanna Ridge Long). Both books provide substantive back-of-the-book notes for each chapter, bibliographies and more. Since this is all at the back, readers can elect to look at the material at their leisure (or even never). The notes are not on the pages in question so they do not interrupt the flow of the text (as was the problem for me with How I Became an American). Yet they provide the sort of solid background material many readers crave.
I'm curious. How is the amount of support material at the back of the book decided upon? Is it a factor of the expected age of the reader? That is, was there less for Shipwrecked than Sir Walter Ralegh because of the different age groups? Frankly, I'd like to see more of it for both historical fiction and creative nonfiction. Monica
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Sun 07 Apr 2002 08:49:03 AM CDT
