Fiction multiplies ambiguity by exploring particulars that suggest general truths

Evidence

Fiction isn’t made by scraping the bones of topicality for the last shreds and sinews, to be processed into mechanically recovered prose. Like journalism, it deals in ideas as well as facts, but also in metaphors, symbols and myths. It multiplies ambiguity. It’s about the particular, which suggests the general: about inner meaning, seen with the inner eye, always glimpsed, always vanishing, always more or less baffling, and scuffled onto the page hesitantly, furtively, transgressively, by night and with the wrong hand. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 17 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Yours is not a face that suggests an easy temper. Holbein shows us contained tension, willed constraint, subdued passion about to break out. Perplexed, you ask yourself, what should I do? How can I serve flesh and spirit? The point about our human nature is that we must go to work on it. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1156 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Fiction multiplies ambiguity and is written with the wrong, hesitant hand — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 17; Character emerges from unresolved inner contradiction — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1156; Rumor blurred witness and imagination in what colonial agents claimed to know — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1047 (+6 more)

Related

• Fiction multiplies ambiguity and is written with the wrong, hesitant hand (similarity 0.90)
• Character emerges from unresolved inner contradiction (similarity 0.83)
• Historical fiction offers a subjective interpretation rather than a photographic replica (similarity 0.82)
• Mediating between factual and imaginative mindsets drove her diverse output (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Fiction multiplies ambiguity and is written with the wrong, hesitant hand #qualifies (0.75) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 17
• Character emerges from unresolved inner contradiction #expands (0.65) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1156