{"id":19461,"date":"2015-05-12T23:07:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T03:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=19461"},"modified":"2015-05-12T23:12:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T03:12:39","slug":"i-too-choose-mystification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/12\/i-too-choose-mystification\/","title":{"rendered":"I, too, choose mystification"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading the latest issue<\/a> in my lifetime subscription to The Paris Review<\/em><\/a> today—a gift subscription from my wife<\/a> that’s been going on for more than 35 years (so I got that going for me, which is nice)—and because the interviews have always been my favorite part, I started by reading the first one, which is with Hilary Mantel, best known as the author of Wolf Hall<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"ParisReview212\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the things she had to say about her approach to writing resonated with my own—<\/p>\n

With historical fiction, the big thing is the constant check you keep on information. What have I told my readers? Of what I’ve told them, how much do I think they hang on to, at first reading? Have I told them too much, have I spoon-fed them? Or have I told them too little, mystified them? It’s not just historical fiction, of course, all fiction is like that. And if it’s a choice between spoon-feeding and mystification, I think choose mystification, because you always have to assume that your reader is at least as intelligent as you are, if not more so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Between the two, I, too, choose mystification.<\/p>\n

How’s that working for me?<\/p>\n

Well … it’s working for me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As to whether it’s working for anyone else … that’s a question which has yet to be fully answered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading the latest issue in my lifetime subscription to The Paris Review today—a gift subscription from my wife that’s been going on for more than 35 years (so I got that going for me, which is nice)—and because the interviews have always been my favorite part, I started by reading the first one, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[659,123],"class_list":["post-19461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hilary-mantel","tag-paris-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19461"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19471,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19461\/revisions\/19471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}