---
title: Synthesis
date: '2003-08-11T08:38:17-04:00'
permalink: /synthesis/
tags:
    - reading
    - research
---

In a bizarre merger of the background materials of my last [two](/on_rereading_gibson/) [posts](/on_rewriting/), [Jill Walker](http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/archives/blog_theorising/truth_revisited.html "jill/txt") today directs our attention to [William Gibson](http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_08_01_archive.asp#106058197662749398 "William Gibson")‘s thoughts on writing, “truth,” and accountability.

When did we all become such literalists that we would suggest that someone who hasn’t actually *experienced* the effects of amphetamines isn’t *qualified* to write about them? Even in something that calls itself fiction?

Has the recent efflorescence of the memoir — so pervasive I’m not even going to bother linking to anything, because how would I narrow the field — had a hand in this demand for “truth” in writing? If so, I wonder: is the blog as a genre partially responsible for or a mere reflection of this apparent cultural predilection for the literal?