The Politics of Art & Authenticity

It was probably the sequence of being read to before reading Katherine Vaz‘s work on my own that has lead me to think that she is better at spinning the story on paper than reading her vision to her audience. Though listening to an author read her work makes it seem more meaningful and personal, it also confuses the audience as to what is precisely going on in the story. It is harder to get past the author’s voice and to imagine the voices of the characters than when one is reading alone. Now that I have literally heard Vaz’s voice, however, I found that when I was reading her work, I was hearing her actual voice as the protagonist’s voice. It was actually not much different than what I experienced during the reading.

As I was reading the “LISBON STORY” I felt myself expecting the same tone in the same setting that she had in the story she had read aloud even if it was not the case. Thus, I was surprised when I read, “The cupboards, canary-yellow and apple-red, cheery plastics I’d installed in the post-revolutionary seventies…lukewarm.” For the first few minutes of reading I was thinking that this took place in some historical past way before the, “post-revolutionary seventies,” and the years after. It was then that I started to re-think the story and refuse to be influenced by whatever I had heard from Vaz concerning the other reading. It, however, proved difficult. I kept hearing her voice and associating it with the other story, especially since “LISBON STORY” also had a female protagonist and Vaz’s style of writing is exactly the same in each. I just could not get over it.

When more characters were introduced such as Mateus and Tonio, it was also harder to imagine their respective male voices speaking in accents and tongues foreign to Vaz’s real voice. I kept hearing her voice attempt to read in Spanish as a male and…failing. Not because I could not imagine her rolling her R’s and such but failing because it was not authentic to the characters speaking. This was probably the biggest hang-up that I experienced with both stories.

There were positive aspects to hearing, though. During the reading, I was able to witness and feel the passion she had for writing the story which is something that I do not usually think about. When first reading a text, envisioning the author is not my main priority and so to literally hear her passion and drive was definitely a new experience. There were points when she painted the setting with her words that made it very vivid and realistic. She paused to explain what she had read which both helped me understand the story a little more but broke the trance of experiencing the story.

As for reading on my own, it was the same experience minus the explantation breaks. Because I had kept hearing her voice in my head, it was like listening to the story rather than straight-up reading, thus,  I did not feel much different. Again, I do believe that it was because I had heard her before I had read her that my experiences turned out in that way. At least when reading, it was easier (still difficult but easier) to get over her hypothetical voice barrier that blocked me from truly hearing the characters.

http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/?q=book-prize/our-lady-artichokes-and-other-portuguese-american-stories

My experiences overall were both positive and negative. It is undeniable that Katherine Vaz is a talented writer. Her voice, however, is not suited for her characters.