This week, I reviewed
Dr. Burton's post on creative non-fiction and started thinking about things I don't like about non-fiction. I had the fortune/misfortune to read a short
memoir called "from Heaven and Earth in Jest" by Annie Dillard. It's a creepy story about this bug who latches onto frogs, injects them with "the most painful insect bite known" and poison that melts their organs and bones into a goo, and then sucks the goo out of their body, leaving "a frog skin bag" to float away. Feeling nauseous? Me too!
But then I got to thinking (horrified, of course) "is this vampire bug REAL?" It is! When I want to know completely accurate and scientific information, I refer to this little-known source called Wikipedia. And that got me to thinking - are encyclopedias considered non-fiction? What about dictionaries? Does that alone make them literature? Hmmm...
In case you wanted to guarantee nightmares, here's the bug!
And to get rid of that nightmare, here's a much happier bug
Thats interesting that the author was able to take facts about this bug and turn it into a narrative. I don't know if I have ever read anything like that before.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness how terrifying! Why in the world did you read that?! You know that thing when you're scared of bugs or spiders and you can put your feet down all the way at the end of the bed? That's me right now.
ReplyDeleteThat just creeped me out. I don't know why someone would write that, but I guess it was some pretty good writing if it can affect a person.
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