Everyday Canvas

Memory and Creativity

Prompt: “To write things as they happened means to enslave oneself to memory, which is only a minor element in the creative process.”
Aharon Appelfeld answering a question by Philip Roth
Do you agree with this statement and, as far as creativity goes, is writing fiction more creative than writing only stark personal experiences?

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This prompt is from Philip Roth’s Shop Talk, which I am in the process of reading. Roth’s interviews of other authors are featured in this book. One of those authors, Aharon Appelfeld, is an Israeli writer who had escaped from Auschwitz when a very young boy, and he wrote of what he remembered by fictionalizing them. He says, memory itself was the enemy of his writing, but once he turned to his imagination, creativity kicked in.

I think actual memory is what we experience, but when we try to put those memories into words or into re-experience, that experience itself becomes contaminated and more emotional with leftovers from our recall, with added snippets of judgment and interpretation into it. In that sense, it may not be a true memory, even if its facts may be traceable.

I think the most creative way we can use personal experiences or the memories of them is by trying to remember the emotions they evoked in us and presenting them to our readers. When they say, ‘write what you know,’ they may be referring to this internalized emotional process and not the actual scenery or people or even the events themselves. To do this well, however, takes mastery, talent, and a great imagination.