Dave's Tara Incognita

Dave's latest effort, Tara Incognita, applies his technique of "narrative parallax" to the Civil War novel The Wind Done Gone, the debut novel of country-music songwriter Alice Randall.  To appreciate the nuances of Dave's technique, you would probably have to read his manifesto, "Math and Literature:  Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together."  In short, narrative parallax is not merely the re-telling of a story from another perspective.  Instead, it involves recasting events in such a way that the story sheds light on "the fabric of reality itself."  In other words, while the "reference story" may have a conventional focus on plot, character, etc. ("the thing itself"), the "perspectivally shifted recapitulation" directs the reader's attention to the subtle differences and contradictions that emerge when the story is retold ("what comes between").  "The simplest way to put it," Dave writes, "is that it is the difference between using trigonometry to calculate the height of a tree, and using trigonometry to calculate your own location.  We've seen the tree, we've thought about the tree, frankly we are bored by the tree; but what can the tree, together with our quantitative methods, teach us about ourselves?  And about our place in the universe?"

But you don't need to be steeped in Dave's somewhat convoluted literary theory to appreciate Tara Incognita.  The Wind Done Gone, which serves as Dave's "reference story," is narrated by a recently-freed slave in the deep South named Cynara.  Dave re-tells the story from the perspective of Scarlett, Cynara's white half-sister.  The book itself is masterful, almost disturbingly so.  Scarlett is rendered vividly and arrestingly, and her triumphs, setbacks, and constant maneuvering are endlessly fascinating.  And yet the story, however delicious, is hard to swallow.  As Scarlett enters the foreground, her family's slaves are simplified, depersonalized, and pushed to the margins.  The book is a self-conscious exercise in privilege and racism.  So what does it say about me that I loved Tara Incognita and couldn't put it down?  What does it say about our society that Tara Incognita is a bestseller and has become far better-known than The Wind Done Gone?  And that the book is about to be made into an epic movie (with Dave taking his first-ever screenwriting credit) that is expected to be one of the highest-grossing films of all time (in inflation-adjusted terms, at least)?

Whatever the broader social and literary implications of the book, Randall apparently does not appreciate Dave's implicit commentary on her work.  She has sued Dave and his publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), though most legal experts think that Dave has a solid First Amendment argument that his book is a parody.  I hope the matter can be settled amicably, because I think the writers have a lot to say to each other and to the rest of us about the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which our legacy of racism distorts our perspective.  The sooner they can resolve their differences, the sooner the dialogue can start.