Lying, or Storytelling, as Antidote to Unhappiness in Robin Klein’s Hating Alison Ashley and Anne Fine’s A Pack of Lies and Goggle-eyes

Authors

  • Alice Curry

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/pecl2008vol18no1art1181

Keywords:

Anne Fine, Robin Klein, unhappiness, lying, storytelling, Hating Alison Ashley, A Pack of Lies, Goggle-eyes

Abstract

Lying and poetry are arts – arts, as Plato saw, not unconnected with each other – and they require the most careful study, the most disinterested devotion. — Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying

A great man – a man whom nature has constructed and invented in the grand style – what is he? ... He rather lies than tells the truth; it requires more spirit and will. — Nietzsche, Will to Power

Wilde and Nietzsche posit lying as an artistic form of self-expression, done knowingly, purposefully and with attention given to form and detail. Lying frees the liar from the constraints of truth, moving him or her into the higher realms of deliberately-conceived art and away from the grim realities of unpolished nature. In Robin Klein’s Hating Alison Ashley (1984) and Anne Fine’s Goggle-eyes (1989), this grim reality comes in the form of the introduction of an alien element into the young protagonists’ families: the boyfriend, and potential husband, of their mother. For both Erica and Kitty, lying, spinning a good yarn or telling tales constitutes their chosen way of mitigating the unhappiness that results from this unwanted addition to their families. Storytelling allows the girls to create a space within which to negotiate their relationships with their soon-to-be extended family, and ultimately integrate into the family circle the person whom they feel has threatened the stability of their family. This space for negotiation is humorous, and takes the form of an imaginatively constructed alternative or exaggerated reality: a space of liberating make-believe, in which the girls can distance, and de-familiarise, themselves from the truth of their situations. I am drawing here on the account of ‘make-believe’ offered by Eric Prenowitz:

Make-believe is not a mode of measured philosophical enquiry. It is not for real, only a game. Something children do, for the fun of it. Readers likewise, and theatergoers. It engages knowingly in untruth and a certain artificial reality. One never makes believe unintentionally or by mistake. It therefore supposes a conscious, self-present, responsible subject—but only to divide itself, to absent itself, without any possible response, from itself. (2006, p.148)

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Author Biography

  • Alice Curry

    Alice Curry gained her BA from Oxford University and an MA in Children’s Literature from Macquarie University. Her interests are in fairy tale, cross-cultural studies and the use of heterotopic space within children’s fiction.

References

Fine, Anne (1990) A Pack of Liars. London, Puffin Books.

——(1989) Goggle-eyes. Boston, Little, Brown and Company.

Klein, Robin (1984) Hating Alison Ashley. Ringwood, Penguin Books Australia.

McGillis, Roderick (1997) ‘Self, Other, and Other Self: Recognizing the Other in Children’s Literature’, The Lion and the Unicorn 21, 2: 215-229.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1968) Will to Power. London, Vintage.

Prenowitz, Eric (2006) ‘Make Believe: Manhattan’s Folittérature’, New Literary History 37, 1: 147-167

Stephens, John (1998) ‘Ideologie und Narrativer Diskurs in Kinderbüchern’, in Hans-Heino Ewers et al. (eds.) Kinder- und Jugendliteratur Forschung 1997/98. Stuttgart, Verlag J. B. Metzler, pp. 19-31. [“Fines Erzählstrategie inszeniert Characterentwicklung, indem sie den “wahren” Gerald zum Vorschein kommen läßt und gleichzeitig Kitty so viel an Reifung zubilligt, daß sie sowohl Geralds Qualitäten erkennt als auch den Wandel ihrer eigenen Gefühle ihm gegenüber.”]. Translated from English by Reinbert Tabbert.

Wilde, Oscar (2004) The Decay of Lying. Montana, Kessinger.

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Published

2008-06-01

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

“Lying, or Storytelling, as Antidote to Unhappiness in Robin Klein’s Hating Alison Ashley and Anne Fine’s A Pack of Lies and Goggle-eyes” (2008) Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, 18(1), pp. 41–47. doi:10.21153/pecl2008vol18no1art1181.

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