"Italian cooking is the art of giving expression to the undisguised flavours of its ingredients," says cookbook guru Marcella Hazan. Certainly true of the pizza and tiramisu I feasted on during my short sojourn in Italy. And equally true of writing and living, I would say. It's all about authenticity.
Yet, more and more, given metafiction's posturing, authenticity is made out to be fiction's embarrassing relative. A hayseed halitosis-addled hick who flashes its author's worst Kodak moments at anyone keen enough to notice. (Wait in the car, you want to say. Or take a fast walk off a short pier before you totally wreck my reputation. I mean, it is just so uncool to be straightforward. To be fresh as a tomato. Or a mushroom.)
The trouble is, the hick, the second cousin twice removed, is a doppleganger. Worse, a mirror image. A tomato with a big fat grin: yours. Mine. Leaking its juices everywhere, staining pages with it. A gorgonzola of a tale, in fact, shouting to be plated.
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