Week 7 Prompt Response

 In considering literary hoaxes, I am of two minds.

On the one hand, I think Menand makes a very strong point when he says that “Literature is a game with language, and hoaxing alerts us to the fact that the rules are not written down anywhere” (Menand, 2018). While there are certain expectations that we as a society hold for authors and the literature they create, those expectations are not rules. A literary hoax has the potential to twist readers’ perspectives in multiple directions, depending on the subject of the literature. To me, that demonstrates the power of writing: regardless of the creator, a well-written piece of literature can have an immense impact on its readership. The discovery that a book was a hoax can have a similar impact, if it was written in a way that ultimately challenges a reader’s beliefs and expectations. 

For example, James Tiptree, Jr. was a science fiction author who presented as male, when in fact it was Alice Sheldon who was behind the award-winning stories. During the period Sheldon was writing (60s-70s), science fiction was very much a boys’ club. Tiptree’s works were lauded and awarded various prizes, but after her identity was revealed, her popularity decreased. Other male science fiction authors were furious that they’d been tricked, some of whom had said very definitively that they believed Tiptree was male due to the writing style. While Sheldon was deceptive as to her gender, she was able to defy the expectation that women couldn’t write science fiction as well as men could.

On the other hand, I find myself very angry at the idea of an author presenting themselves as part of a minority group if they are not. It is one thing to write a fiction story from a perspective not your own (e.g., a woman writing about homosexual men, something I support), but another entirely to write a nonfiction book with the voice of, say, a Latinx man when you are in fact an old white man (see Menand’s article and the discussion of Famous All Over Town by “Danny Santiago”). As Menand says, “The name on the cover is not that of the person who wrote the contents—the name on the cover is deliberately misleading—and the reader has no way of knowing it” (2018). If the author’s biography explained that the credited name was a pseudonym, admitting to their actual identity, I could see the argument that they were conducting a social experiment of some kind. If they continue the lie into a place where honesty is expected, however, then I am inclined to look at the hoax as an attempt to capitalize on cultural minorities’ experiences, especially if the real author is white.

There is a much longer rant inside me on the subjects of publishing groups, capitalism, cultural appropriation, etc, but it would serve no purpose here.

Menand, L. (2018, December 3). Literary hoaxes and the ethics of authorship. The New Yorker. Retrieved on 23 February 2023 from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/literary-hoaxes-and-the-ethics-of-authorship