Author Archives: Zach Muhlbauer

Fun Home: Literature, Literary, Literariness, etc.

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Frankly, it would be ridiculous not to consider Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home literature. It propounds a diverse array of character dynamics—from daughter-father to husband-wife to man/woman-society to person-self—many of which deal with human conflict and speak to subjects like artistic creation, gender, sexual orientation, illusion, identity, and interpersonal connection both familial and beyond. It presents an authentic account of the residential landscape in America, sculpting a household setting that evolves into its own character and autonomous presence. It embraces readers, welcoming them in with intimacy, honesty, and open arms like a close-friend or lover. It is witty and cultured, contemplative and hilarious, tragic and inspirational. It is a poetic, pictorial meditation on self and family enriched with more literary aptitude than it can rightfully handle. It is literature. I’m sure of it.  Continue reading →

D’Agata the Honest Trickster

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The elasticity of storytelling, the ambiguity inherent to the reader-writer relationship, the lies that tell the truth: these are but a few of the many phenomena that underscore the chaos and depth of creative nonfiction. As a result, when we pursue literary order—a complex nonfictional typology in this case, if you will—we meet a certain arbitrariness in our classification of what may or may not preclude texts from the genre of nonfiction to begin with. Continue reading →

Lauren Slater’s Heideggerian Truth

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Hayward Krieger, the nonexistent philosophy professor of the forward, brings up an elusive conception of truth that supposedly underscores Lying: namely, Heideggerian truth. I won’t propose to sufficiently understand Martin Heidegger—a difficult existentialist thinker just like Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard, two other philosophers she alludes to the text—but his conception of truth is a curious and complex one when read in detail. To tentatively simplify, though, he proposes that truth is consistent with the “openness of being.” In particular, he focuses on art—specifically van Gogh whom Slater references as another accomplished mind haunted by epilepsy—as a medium through which people might illuminate this conception of truth. This early allusion at oncesets a precedent for existentialist thought in Lying and, further, puts us as readers in a more developed position to dig deeper into Slater’s philosophical inklings as memoirist and individual.  Continue reading →

McElwee’s March

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There is a little bit of everything in Sherman’s March: self-deprecation, Burt Reynolds, war, melancholy, failure, historical reanalysis, and cultural satire (did I mention Burt Reynolds?), all in hopes of reaching some semblance of love, art, and selfhood. Ross McElwee puts everything he has into this documentary equivalent of the epic poem, and to a large degree, succeeds in his efforts. His two hour and forty minute runtime is nothing short of a marathon, and it all comes together to make a truly unique cinematic experience. In a way, too, every single second is necessary for his artistic endeavor to meet its proper conclusion. That’s the thing about Ross… he lets the camera, an extension of his body, take him wherever the camera needs to go. Furthermore, the authorial sincerity behind this intimate journey, no matter the consequence, dictates where and how and why the story unfolds the way it does. Continue reading →

Serial and the Dynamics of Nonfiction

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Experiencing Sarah Koenig’s expressive and detailed recounting of the events that transpired January 13, 1999 has expanded my perspective of nonfiction and how the genre can use a hodgepodge of mediums to convey meaning. Koenig’s Serial, for instance, combines a meticulous blend of analytical/humanizing rhetoric, music, maps, documents and various other forms of multimedia  to sculpt a complex narrative that we, the listeners, can sit back, absorb, contemplate and interpret at our own leisure. The way Koenig and her colleagues deliberate upon these variables, however, has certain implications at the level of storytelling that differ from traditional, script-based nonfiction. In particular, Serial guides us down its very delineated path with more of a push and a pull than its manuscript counterpart could ever muster. For instance, the perennial introduction with its sharp, exciting score and manner of rehashing previous episodes—”previously on Serial…” and “This is a global tel link prepaid call from… Adnan Syed… an inmate at the Maryland correctional facility,” being constants after episode one—frames the show with a grain of drama, show and glamor reminiscent of popular television. As a microcosm of the podcast’s entertainment value, this narrative device on one level lures me into the next episode at an almost obsessive rate: it engrosses me, entices me, turns me into a giddy and (usually) stringent listener who acknowledges this story as powerful and endearing. Regardless, though, another side of me sees this as gimmicky and exploitative, a way in which manipulative show-artists catalyze the tragic events back in 1999 for the sake of meaningful entertainment. Perhaps it is both. Continue reading →

In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion‘s nonfictional profiles often serve as a commentary on the American dream in regards to California culture. She develops this complex idea by examining the personal, social, and/or political landscape of Carmel Valley and the “underside of Hollywood,” for instance, and pays great attention to the noteworthy figures who shaped the ideologies of these cultural hotspots. In her essays, “Where the Kissing Never Stops” and “7000 Romaine, Los Angeles 28,” she analyzes, respectively, Joan Baez and Howard Hughes, and contemplates their motivations and idiosyncrasies as people, as well as how their personality traits historically connected to larger idealistic undertones in California at the time. The two were radically different people when focused upon, but a vital parallel between the two remains: they both were eager to express their true-blue American freedom in all its varying forms. Continue reading →