Telling an Authentic Story – Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered

Telling an Authentic Story – Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered

Jess Shankland

A story can be authentic if told correctly. At least, that's how June feels when she's selling antiques and raising a child as a single parent. In chapter nine June believes, "Authenticity ultimately lay in the story you could tell, a tale most effective when it was at once fanciful and mundane. You had to offer differing scales, unlikely modulations, though all based upon the firmest-seeming foundation." (246)

            A well-made-up story, in order to sell the idea of a thing, must sound real, must mimic a truth. The words "fanciful and mundane" at the same time tell that a story is unreal and imaginative, as well as unimaginative, believable and boring. Life is not typically made up of fanciful stories; instead it is made up of mundane day to day happenings. June sells her antiques by giving the antiques familiar value and "sells" stories to Nicholas's imagination in the same way. June "tried to be honest whenever possible, though with old furniture and objets d'art it was difficult to follow completely ethical practices." (245) It is as if "old furniture and objets d'art" are metaphors for June's past: the places she's been, the things she's seen, the people she's known. In telling Nicholas just enough information about these pieces of her history, it is in his own mind that he forms the authenticity, even if the story June has told him about an actual person (the firm foundation) is a lie (fanciful and mundane).

            The storyteller must have what it takes to set a firm foundation. Authenticity is related to honesty and in the case of telling a story, lying or at least not giving whole truths, there is contradiction. The storyteller is given the power. As long as a story has a firm foundation, a place to grow from, even the smallest pieces of information can form themselves together. Not only does this idea spring from June's ways but also in The Surrendered as a whole novel. Each chapter is a piece of a puzzle, and each puzzle piece eventually fits in with another. As long as a whole picture can be formed after all the pieces are together, it is authentic. 

(Note: My page numbers are typically not the same as the actual book because I have the Kindle version.)