Short Takes

Part Eight: 

The essays that I read this week:
1. "Disclaimer" by Ron Carlson
2. "Contributor's Note" by Michael Martone

Analysis of "Disclaimer"

In this essay, Carlson seems to be keeping with the theme of these last two weeks that Eggers brought up: fictionalizing non-fiction. What constitutes fiction, and what constitutes non-fiction? Do you have to tell your readers that what you are telling them happened or did not happen? In this work, Carlson blatantly tells his readers that this is "a work of fiction" and that "any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is merely coincidental." Yet the rest of the piece then goes into factual events that did occur. He seems to do the very actual opposite then of fictionalizing an account; he non-fictionalizes it. This particularly can be seen as he relates the details of his first love Debbie Delucca. He recounts the memories of the vanilla milkshake and cheeseburger, but in the end, shows the reality of the situation - he did not get the girl. Rather, they both moved on, and he confirms this by mentioning how fiction would have showed the opposite. "If you want the coincidence where some character based on me gets the amazing girl back and has his heart start again after so many years, you're going to have to look in a book." Placing these two genres on opposing sides of one another, Carlson lends to this discussion of fictionalizing factual events.