Dear David Shields (the not-so-friendly author)

Recently, I read Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields as part of a project I am working on. Instead of trying to describe the book in my own words, here is an editorial review from Amazon.com:

"'I doubt very much that I’m the only person who’s finding it more and more difficult to want to read or write novels,' David Shields acknowledges in Reality Hunger, then seeks to understand how the conventional literary novel has become as lifeless a form as the mass market bodice-ripper. Shields provides an ars poetica for writers and other artists who, exhausted by the artificiality of our culture, 'obsessed by real events because we experience hardly any,' are taking larger and larger pieces of the real world and using them in their work. Reality Hunger is made of 600-odd numbered fragments, many of them quotations from other sources, some from Shields’s own books, but none properly sourced--the project being not a treasure hunt or a con but a good-faith presentation of what literature might look like if it caught up to contemporary strategies and devices used in the other arts, and allowed for samples (that is, quotation from art and from the world) to revivify existing forms. Shields challenges the perceived superiority of the imagination and exposes conventional literary pieties as imitation writing, the textual equivalent of artificial flavoring, sleepwalking, and small talk. I can’t name a more necessary or a more thrilling book. "--Sarah Manguso

If you need more information about the book to illuminate the following, please feel free to do some research. Shields is on YouTube in a number of videos giving readings. One thing Shields maintains is that "Art is theft." The notion of plagiarism and lack of attribution in this book still makes me uncomfortable. I appreciate what Shields is trying to do with this book (and yes, I understand the book's purpose), but I feel like he missed the mark by going too far without giving enough explanation of his own in some aspects. I also feel like the book may have been more interesting written from his perspective exclusively. I will save you from my findings which were my task at hand, as I more interested here in sharing the experience.

The one aspect of the book that I kept coming back to was if Shields believes this much in plagiarism(the majority of the book is plagiarized), what would he think if someone stole his ideas. Seemed a reasonable question to me.

I have written a lot of authors over the years: out of curiosity, for projects, and simply to let them know that I truly appreciated the effort they were putting forth. Two authors in particular gave me incredibly gracious responses: Sarah Vowell and Thomas Lynch, both of whom I respect even more for their kindnesses in spite of their fame--they recognized that without an audience, while the authors themselves would exist still, their writings might not mean anything.

Shields was not so gracious. Here is my email and his response. I didn't think his response deserved a response, but I got worked up, as I do, and responded anyway--which I feel good about now.

The Original Email
Hi, David.

I am reading your book Reality Hunger: A Manifesto as part of a project in which I am helping one of my professors finish his textbook. Another professor I have has added your book as a requirement for a class next semester. I am not finished with the novel, yet, but I keep coming back to one question: how would you feel if I put my name on this book, changed the picture, so your picture became mine, and called the book my own?

I am sure you have had this question before, but I am really curious as to what your answer will be.

Sincerely,
Andrea Oyarzabal

David's Reply-Exactly 7 minutes later

1) It’s not a novel.
2) The book argues that quotation can be a transformative, crreative** act. Putting your name on my book would make about as much sense as putting your name on The Waste Land.

My Response
Dear David,

1.) I purposefully called it a novel because it has been described as the "anti-novel." Part of what I got from your book is that lines are very much blurred when it comes to genre. With genre comes labeling, which I did purposefully, and long ago, Capote coined the term nonfiction novel, so it seemed fitting to me to label it as such. Part of what you argue is that nonfiction and fiction, in a sense, do not exist. In my reading of the book, I use the term novel in a sense from the Italian origin novella, meaning "new story," because your book is something new--and it's aphoristic quality, while using the words of others, seemed something new in respect to a book--as you point out it's done elsewhere in culture all the time. Your book is art, and it is up to me to interpret it as I will. While I don't always agree with the book, something I learned long ago is to always respect the work that is put behind an idea to form a book, and it is the hard work that I respect.

2.) The question was a serious one, and one I felt needed to be asked, but I will be sure to share with my classmates and professors that I got such a thoughtful, non-terse response from a fellow professor in the Northwest. Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,
Andrea Oyarzabal


David's Reply-an hour and fifty minutes later

Ok;thanks.

How do I feel about this? A little sad that someone that is a thinking human would give such a condescending response. While I understand that as my question is written--the notion of plagiarism becomes really literal. It's not as if I asked, if I were to take your work and re-render it into something, then would it be okay if I put my name on it? Yet, my original question is not a lot different than what he did in this book. He cut and pasted the writings of other authors, which he did not want to cite, but his publisher made him, arranged them in an aphoristic way, and put his name on it. It is only logical to ask such a question: "how do you feel when people steal your work; does it bother you?"

In comparing my question to the notion of me putting my name on an enigmatic piece of literature, Shields is implying I am a huge, dumb asshole. That doesn't bode well with me. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but that's for me to decide, not him. Am I surprised? Not entirely. Did I want to remind him I was lining his pockets by reading the book? You bet I did. Would it bother him if someone plagiarized his work? I think the succinct, straightforward, and cordial response is, yes.

And only to make myself feel much better, here is a clip from the Colbert Report in which Stephen Colbert does the only thing that makes sense:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/270740/april-14-2010/david-shields