Of these chapters, this is the most tentative; it seeks to discuss in practice what many critics—including this one—try to account for in theory: the puzzling relationship between autobiography and fiction. Though tentative, it is undertaken with a conviction: to say that autobiography is merely a form of fiction is not sufficient. Why this is so may become apparent in the course of this discussion, but as a starting point we may wonder why, if there is no real distinction between autobiography and fiction, the two categories maintain themselves. Perhaps there is no essential or metaphysical distinction between the two modes. Nevertheless, this avoids the effective aspect of writing.

Certainly, the theory of recent years all too obviously demonstrates the untenability of naive views of autobiography as an unproblematic account of the past (or the past self) ‘as it was’. It would be equally foolish to construct absolute distinctions between the literatures of fact and of fiction based on style. History and personal history both use ‘fictional’ techniques. Nevertheless, that is not to say there is no difference.