When I was in elementary school, I had a hard time remembering the difference between non-fiction and fiction. Which one was real and which one was fake? My teacher told me an easy trick, one that I still use to this day working as a library clerk in a major library system: non-fiction is not fake, so it's true; fiction is fake, so it's fantasy or made-up. However, there's more to it than just what I learned in elementary school - can a non-fiction book be considered a novel? With a highly acclaimed graphic novel such as Maus, which earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, can a book be true but still a novel?
It's not a misnomer. Fiction is writing that is not true, something made-up or a type of fantasy land, no matter how true to the world it may seem to be. It didn't actually happen so it's fiction. Non-fiction is something that actually did happen - it was based on a true story, so to speak. A novel, however, is something completely different. A novel doesn't depend on whether or not what is written is true. All a novel requires is a certain amount of words, approximately 50,000 to 100,000, that involve actions and speech from characters. Using these requirements, a non-fiction book could still be considered a novel. For example, my favorite book of all time, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a non-fiction novel. It clocks in at 125,715 words, is based on a true story, and uses actions and speech from characters. All of these things constitute it as a non-fiction novel.
Even though Maus written by Art Spiegelman is only a little over 20,000 words, it is still considered a graphic novel. Since it's also based on the true story of his father, it is considered non-fiction. A non-fiction book can still be a graphic novel or comic book medium and still be true. Just because it's a graphic novel and has pictures doesn't automatically make it not true or a fantasy book.
One of my favorite parts of Maus is when Art's father is pretending to be Polish to hide the fact that he's Jewish. For those who haven't read Maus yet (what are you waiting for), Art depicts Jews as mice, Nazis as cats, and Polish people as pigs. During one of the scenes, Art's father is riding a train pretending to be Polish. In the scene, he's wearing a pig mask and only being able to see him next to true Polish people can we tell that it's a mask. If he did not use this medium and had instead gone for a traditional non-fiction novel route, we wouldn't have been able to see the incredible imagery and impact that this scene has as Art's father takes on a new identity in the name of self-preservation. Conveying this emotional impact during this moment is what we want from amazing literature - whether or not it's non-fiction, fiction, a novel, or a graphic novel.
It's not a misnomer. Fiction is writing that is not true, something made-up or a type of fantasy land, no matter how true to the world it may seem to be. It didn't actually happen so it's fiction. Non-fiction is something that actually did happen - it was based on a true story, so to speak. A novel, however, is something completely different. A novel doesn't depend on whether or not what is written is true. All a novel requires is a certain amount of words, approximately 50,000 to 100,000, that involve actions and speech from characters. Using these requirements, a non-fiction book could still be considered a novel. For example, my favorite book of all time, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a non-fiction novel. It clocks in at 125,715 words, is based on a true story, and uses actions and speech from characters. All of these things constitute it as a non-fiction novel.
Even though Maus written by Art Spiegelman is only a little over 20,000 words, it is still considered a graphic novel. Since it's also based on the true story of his father, it is considered non-fiction. A non-fiction book can still be a graphic novel or comic book medium and still be true. Just because it's a graphic novel and has pictures doesn't automatically make it not true or a fantasy book.
One of my favorite parts of Maus is when Art's father is pretending to be Polish to hide the fact that he's Jewish. For those who haven't read Maus yet (what are you waiting for), Art depicts Jews as mice, Nazis as cats, and Polish people as pigs. During one of the scenes, Art's father is riding a train pretending to be Polish. In the scene, he's wearing a pig mask and only being able to see him next to true Polish people can we tell that it's a mask. If he did not use this medium and had instead gone for a traditional non-fiction novel route, we wouldn't have been able to see the incredible imagery and impact that this scene has as Art's father takes on a new identity in the name of self-preservation. Conveying this emotional impact during this moment is what we want from amazing literature - whether or not it's non-fiction, fiction, a novel, or a graphic novel.
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