Reality Hunger: A Discussion via Homage

This past Wednesday students from Hamline met to discuss David Shields’ newest book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto under the moderation of professor Barrie Jean Borich.  In the spirit of the book, I am posting quotes from the evening, some of which are verbatim and some of which I edited for clarity, context, or simply because I didn’t catch the full phrase.  I didn’t include everything, and they aren’t necessarily in order, but unlike Shields, I believe attribution is important so I’ve used the students’ first names.  And I apologize if I misquoted someone. 

I think it’s a defensive lyric essay via an attack on narrative fiction.
Loren

I would add that it is a personal manifesto or manifestation of what is a viable genre/nongenre.
Carlee

It seemed to be more personal essaying than cultural manifesto.
Nuria

It was very crass. “I like this; I don’t like that.” It was egotistical or it comes off that way, could be read that way.  At times I thought, Oh please.
Julie

I found it interesting that he left some people, who I consider important and influential, out: Annie Dillard, Katherine Norris, Mary Karr. I tried to read the titles as one long poem but it didn’t quite work.
Chrisanne

I found it interesting that he had a section about persona, but I didn’t feel like I knew his persona or whose mind I was reading. 
Pam

It was a superficial argument in favor of creative nonfiction but on a deeper level this was a consciousness experience.

Elizabeth

We don’t live in actuality we live in the world and this book seems to be attempting to articulate the world we live in.  I find it interesting that he chose to publish it in this form--a book--instead of a different form.  I mean, he made a lot of money off of this and it would have been ideal as either a book released under creative commons or as a fully web-based book.
Nuria

I don’t think we can approach reality with art.  As soon as we start to create there is artifice involved.

Carlee

I want to know why, if he’s trying to make a statement about what’s now and new, why did he resort to so many old quotes?
Pam

I don’t know that I want art to give only bare reality.  It’s reality that’s filtered through someone’s consciousness...My kids love narratives and stories.  They don’t want to read a lyric essay about dinosaurs.
Julie

It is a position of privilege to say “I don’t need to expose my archives.”
Barrie

This is supposed to be so groundbreaking but he didn’t find people on the fringes of CNF, or those who are highly experimental; instead, he just used quotes from established, well-known, oft-quoted people in the field.  He seems more curator than creator.
Nuria

It’s an “I” that’s many I’s.  But I don’t believe that anyone else could have written Loren’s thesis or Carlee’s thesis.  No one else has had all the same experiences.
Tom

I don’t know what David Shields thinks, I know what the book thinks...I don’t believe his section [on page 209] about the notes.  I think he created a persona but I think David Shields has been around long enough to know that he wouldn’t get away with not publishing his sources.
Loren

This felt at times like a Greek chorus, like an “I” that was staring back at I (me).
Elizabeth

I read it as very tongue-in-cheek, a light overture on where can this go, based on where it’s been and the history of writing.  It reminded me of Duchamp’s urinal [The Fountain].

Chrisanne

I think this represents how we live--we live in a very fragmented world.  We get snippets here and there: we look something up on Google and it takes us to the Wikipedia link--we don’t look beyond the first page of results--and then we skim that, and we have Facebook status updates, and the ticker scrolling across the screen...I think this book shows us what we’re getting.
Sarah

Yes, this was, essentially, like a Google aggregation. I’m interested, I guess, in that tension, then: between what we really want and what we’re getting.
Carlee

If it is saying that what we want now is a fragmented reality (not the realness of human connection) then I’m not buying it in a fundamental sense.
Julie

I found it interesting that he defended [James] Frey on the fact that we want the good stuff with truth but we don’t want the responsibilities.
Tom

The persona on the page wants you to think he gets it, but I think he’s really saying, “Tell me this isn’t all there is.”

Elizabeth

I admired the book but I couldn’t become invested in it because there wasn’t enough emotion: it was all intellect.  I wanted to be fed more than fragments.
Pam

What I want to know is, where is the reader in all of this?
Tom

We want what’s real but we also want a story.
Nuria

So he’s saying the best literature strips away plot; if you take just the monologues from Hamlet it’s really an essay.  But you can’t take the monologue out of the end of Castaway--you have to have seen everything else in order for it to make sense.  That’s real, more real than reality TV.
Julie

I want to know if you think he is in a truthful dialogue with himself.
Elizabeth

Intellectually, yes; in other ways, probably not.
Nuria

What do you think of his thoughts on sampling and is this sampling?
Barrie

I don’t think it’s sampling; in order for that to work for me, he’d have to just take a short phrase, not the whole quote.  Like if I said “the cruelest month” people would think of the  [T.S.] Eliot poem; or in this book, if he just said “shaped like a question mark” the reader would think of Lauren Slater’s Lying.
Sarah

Sampling only works if you use something everyone knows.
Not sure, maybe Barrie?

I think it’s curation versus sampling; he presents these quotes in a book but he adds his own patina (!) to it...The relationship of things put side by side is what’s important/creates the meaning.
Carlee

He talks about collage as an evolution beyond narrative but there is a bitter undercurrent.
Elizabeth

It’s not something that lacks composition, it’s just not narrative.
Loren

It’s an octopus of replication, not an emphasis of new voices. 
Barrie

There’s always a bigger pack out there. 
Elizabeth