Jason Howell
asked
Suki Kim:
Suki... Do you think you're more vulnerable in your fiction or in your personal life? What obstacles to vulnerability are there for you in either of those areas? And why do you think you're able to be more open in one than in the other? Thanks, Jason
Suki Kim
This is a question that took some time for me to answer. Vulnerability is a necessary thing in anything artful, I feel. Confession isn't interesting to me. You just pour out your feelings and turn around and go on. That's a different thing altogether. Someone else's story ultimately is someone else's story. Both listening and telling are contained in this one dimensional space, quite a superfluous exchange.
Once you turn that into art, however, someone else's story becomes mine. That's where vulnerability comes in because this exchange involves a deeper level of empathy.
In fiction, vulnerability is reached when you get to the core of your characters, and it's that moment that the characters come alive and this abstract story that had only been in your mind becomes real, both for you as a writer and also for the readers. Making something alive that had not been until then is akin to performing a miracle.
This is also the case in literary, narrative nonfiction. In Without You, an investigative memoir, that "character" was also me. I was not merely delivering the raw facts about North Korea but instead recreating the very human and complex world I saw there for my readers in all its vivid details, which meant that I had to also become a narrator of the story. I was telling the truth about myself and what I saw there and experienced but I was also a character as well as the writer. How much to reveal and how much to hold on, so that this stops being a verbal vomit of confession, which isn't interesting or relevant, but instead comes alive as if the readers are there in Pyongyang living the experience through me? What I choose to reveal, and how I do it -- that revelatory process is an artful one. And there is a vulnerability to it because unless I reach the inner most depth of honesty, it doesn't come alive. This is like breathing life into a thought. That process, whether in fiction or nonfiction, involves the sort of vulnerability that is simply hard and inevitably painful. Because we human beings resist being vulnerable because opening oneself to hurt is fundamentally frightening. For me, stripping oneself bare naked is what is required in both fiction and nonfiction.
Your question is if I find one genre harder than the other -- I think it's the same if you are making art. Most often I am just not able to be open, and when I write in that mode, my writing falls flat, but once you fall in love with whatever you are writing, it's then some magic happens, and I am not so terrified of vulnerability, and I get swept away by that magic. It's immensely painful, however, for some reason, to get there.
Once you turn that into art, however, someone else's story becomes mine. That's where vulnerability comes in because this exchange involves a deeper level of empathy.
In fiction, vulnerability is reached when you get to the core of your characters, and it's that moment that the characters come alive and this abstract story that had only been in your mind becomes real, both for you as a writer and also for the readers. Making something alive that had not been until then is akin to performing a miracle.
This is also the case in literary, narrative nonfiction. In Without You, an investigative memoir, that "character" was also me. I was not merely delivering the raw facts about North Korea but instead recreating the very human and complex world I saw there for my readers in all its vivid details, which meant that I had to also become a narrator of the story. I was telling the truth about myself and what I saw there and experienced but I was also a character as well as the writer. How much to reveal and how much to hold on, so that this stops being a verbal vomit of confession, which isn't interesting or relevant, but instead comes alive as if the readers are there in Pyongyang living the experience through me? What I choose to reveal, and how I do it -- that revelatory process is an artful one. And there is a vulnerability to it because unless I reach the inner most depth of honesty, it doesn't come alive. This is like breathing life into a thought. That process, whether in fiction or nonfiction, involves the sort of vulnerability that is simply hard and inevitably painful. Because we human beings resist being vulnerable because opening oneself to hurt is fundamentally frightening. For me, stripping oneself bare naked is what is required in both fiction and nonfiction.
Your question is if I find one genre harder than the other -- I think it's the same if you are making art. Most often I am just not able to be open, and when I write in that mode, my writing falls flat, but once you fall in love with whatever you are writing, it's then some magic happens, and I am not so terrified of vulnerability, and I get swept away by that magic. It's immensely painful, however, for some reason, to get there.
More Answered Questions
Jean Farrell
asked
Suki Kim:
First, thank you for this book, which gives an unusual perspective on life in North Korea. Are you aware of any ramifications to the school, or to your former colleagues and students as a result of the publication of your book? Will you be unable to return to North Korea in the future as a result of the publication of this book?
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more
Oct 06, 2015 06:07AM · flag