The Acknowledgement - a Thing of Darkness?

[steepholm]

 In a recent discussion on Child_lit (which, for those who don’t know, it is a listserv devoted to the academic discussion of children’s literature), someone asked about the practice of novelists including Acknowledgements pages in their books, as has long been done for works of non-fiction. When did it come about, she enquired? She also confessed to finding it a bit odd. 

I think it’s an interesting question – albeit one that applies to adult fiction as much as children’s. I too think the sudden ubiquity (or so it seems) of lengthy acknowledgements a bit odd, and I was foolish enough to mention that personally I didn’t much care for it (for reasons I’ll go into below). Though I didn’t expect many people to agree with me, I was surprised to be accused by more than one poster of wanting to ban the things. One person devoutly hoped that I was joking; another found my preference bordering on the risibly bizarre. Altogether there was something defensive about the reaction, as if I was somehow sneering at people who liked Acknowledgements. That was a little upsetting, but interesting too, in retrospect.

So, why don’t I care for Acknowledgements pages? First, note that by Acknowledgements I don’t mean dedications, or explanatory notes such as one often finds appended to historical novels. (I’m often ambivalent about the latter too, but I’ll admit they are at least necessary sometimes.) No, I mean those lists of editors, friends, family and chance acquaintances who may be said to have had a hand in providing inspiration, coffee, good advice, and so on – especially where this is fleshed out to become something like a ‘History of the Making of This Book’ in the manner of a DVD extra.

What could be my problem with such a generous-spirited recognition of the undisputed fact that, with any book, the material doesn't originate entirely within the writer's own head? There are two main reasons for my preference, one perhaps more respectable than the other. (And after the Child_lit experience, let me stress that this is just an account of how I react, not a model for others to follow!) The first is that this kind of thing tends to throw me out of the fictional world, by reminding me that it’s all made up. Of course I do know this anyway, but I don’t need to have my face rubbed in it the minute I’ve read FINIS. I’m aware this is not a universal reaction, and I’ll admit that I don’t mind at all when actors come on at the end of a play to take a bow – but the “Making of this Book” approach can feel more like a magician explaining how the trick he’s just performed was done. As a matter of fact I’d be very interested to know how it was done – just as I’m very interested to know how books are written – but I don’t feel the book itself is the place to do it.

Well, why don’t I just skip the Acknowledgements, you might ask – as several people did ask. Of course, I’m far too nosy to do so (and I’d certainly stay to hear the magician’s explanation). Also, I feel that if something’s designed by the author to sit in the book, it’s because the author feels that reading it will enhance rather than detract from the experience of reading the book. I’m Modernist enough not to like the idea that some bits of a book are optional extras. As a parallel, imagine that it became standard practice for artists to put up a page of Acknowledgements next to their paintings, explaining how they came by the idea for the picture, where they buy their brushes, how their partner encouraged and criticized them, what other painters they admire, etc. All very interesting: all entirely distracting. And imagine that this page was considered part of the painting, to the extent that wherever the painting was to be displayed the Acknowledgements would be displayed too. Would it really be so bizarre to say that, personally, I’d rather that kind of information was kept to the catalogue or a magazine interview? Or that being told to “just ignore it” didn’t quite answer the case?

The less respectable reason for disliking Acknowledgements is that, in some hands, they can feel a bit breathless and Oscar-speech-ish. Or they can become a rather cloying round of log-rolling and mutual admiration between members of tight literary coteries. One poster on Child_lit suggested that the reason she liked Acknowledgements was because it allowed her a sense of community with the author, but I can’t help feeling that this is a very highly artificial and mediated form of community (these people write fiction, after all!), and isn’t necessarily more authentic than that offered by reading Hello! magazine.

Finally, I still wonder about the original question. When did Acknowledgements pages become widespread in fiction? Are they now in fact de rigeur, so that anyone who doesn’t include them will be seen as a precious and egotistical poser? And does it mark some kind of epistemic shift, whereby authors are no longer seen as individual artists (in the way that painters and composers still are) but simply as one player in a collaborative art form, more on the lines of a movie scriptwriter? If so, how did that happen?

Comments

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

This is a really interesting post - I've never considered acknowledgements in fiction before. Actually, I'm not entirely sure I've come across any, and I'm at work with no easy access to fiction so I can't check. Does it make any difference to your dislike if they come at the front or the back?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd far rather have them at the back - otherwise it's spoilerish, and I find myself looking out for where this or that person might have had a finger in the pie.

[deborah]

I have been thanked, sincerely and heartwarmingly, more than once in one of these lengthy acknowledgment sections, and yet I still find them problematic. (Like you say, personally problematic, not critically or structurally. And my reason is pretty much entirely your second, less respectable reason. I get the breathless, Oscar-speech-ish feel for most of them. I know from the authors of my acquaintance who write them that that is not at all the intent; most of the authors I know who write lengthy acknowledgment sections truly and sincerely want to thank the people who have brought them something that brings them joy. And yet to me, as a reader, they smack of some kind of hubris. I'm not sure why, although I can come up with rationalizations for why, I just know that it is an instinctive reaction on my part.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

i always suggest that authors put them in the back. when i, as a reader, see them in front matter, my gut reaction is much like deborah's.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I think they have become de rigueur, which is why I use them. But I try to keep mine short, thanking those to whom I am grateful, maybe mentioning something that otherwise has caused questions, then off. I find problematical the ones that go on and on about the suffering of the artist to create the perfect book (implication you are about the read the perfect book) and especially the ones that presume that this book is so brilliant that a study guide will be provided on this website, or you may find discussion questions at the back.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

It's funny, because the very first time I ever heard of anyone reading a fictional work in a beta reading kind of way* was when a brilliant woman on a listserve mentioned that someone in her book group was acknowledged in either the Wren books or C&C Duet and I was just blown away with the awesomeness of the whole thing. However many years later, your acknowledgments have sustained me for ages after seeing them. (Not with <lj user="steepholm" on this argument.) Surely the discussion questions are the doing of publishers anyway? * Which may not have happened as much as you'd think, to go by one of those family stories about the response when my mother criticised one of my father's stories.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the discussion questions are prepared by publishers, especially in school editions. But I mean first time novels, with long introductions assuming that this is going to be a great work that is ordered by teachers and taught in classrooms. I've only seen a handful of these over the years, but in each case, there was a distinct sense that the author was just so staggered by their own genius, they felt obliged to offer direction in the study of their novel. In one case, the extra material was something like eight pages of questions, guidance, and further elucidations on important libertarian thought.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I like being acknowledged, but I don't think it's ever happened with fiction. I expect I'd like that too, though.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Acknowledgments are designed to warm the hearts of those being acknowledged. I've been one, so I know. In fiction they usually serve no other purpose for the ordinary reader, and I'm with you: they're better off omitted. I find the "just don't read them, then" counter-offer to be inane. Worried about spoiler blurbs? That advice would have you never read a blurb again for fear of finding a bad one. Don't like sex scenes in the story? Then magically know they're coming and skip an uncountable number of pages.

I don't even like "first novel dedication syndrome" where the novelist mistakes the dedication for an acknowledgment page and dedicates at once to everybody their next nine novels should have been dedicated to.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting, and relates in part to something I've been meaning to post about - and probably will - about interpretive signs on museums. I find that I don't have a very coherent response, but will give you the following snippets:

Someone on my flist, some time ago, was worrying about having forgotten to acknowledge someone in her _thesis_.

If Ian McEwan had not acknowledged his debt to Lucilla Andrews at the back of _Atonement_, the accusations of plagiarism might have stuck.

I hadn't noticed that they had become ubiquitous, and had not really paid much attention to them. I do, however, usually read them and find them vaguely interesting.

If I had done something helpful in the creation of a book, I would be hurt if I were not included.

Finally, it's that kind of response to things that stopped me reading childlit some time ago. However, if you are on it, I might consider going back...

[brownnicky.livejournal.com]

I kind of thought it was polite to thank people, that it was standard practise. I usually thank beta readers, particularly if they are kids; if someone has slogged through a draft mss as a favour, a public word of thanks seems appropriate. If I cook dinner and someone brings wine or a pudding or tells me how to rescue something I've messed up, I'll acknowledge their contribution to the meal and I don't see that as hubristic. I see the acknowledgements as a way of recognising help - getting a work of fiction in front of an end reader is not a one woman job.
OTOH I rarely read other people's as I expect them to be as dull as my own so maybe I would be more irritated by them if I did.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

:) There are those of us who love seeing the equivalent of who brought wine or pudding, as much as we love seeing who beta read. To me it's kind of like the intertextual conversations that went on so often in 19th century books, especially children's ones. Love another author's books? - Have your characters poring over them in your own!

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention this -- a psychologist friend of mine in Seattle and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, and she mentioned this -- and said something along the lines of, "well, I guess we know who the really well-connected fans are!"

I know that acknowledgements are lovely, and do like them in academic books. But that conversation made me wonder if to some extent acknowledgements in fiction, especially sf/f, can help to foster feelings of 'important' vs. 'ordinary', or 'in-group' and 'outsider'.

[brownnicky.livejournal.com]

It might, but then not everyone helps the author or is married to one or saved their life or whatever. Does a reader care? As a reader I don't feel excluded by the fact that another writer has friends and helpers, agents and editors.

I've been thinking about this too!

[(Anonymous)]

I love writing novels (for my own enjoyment) but was thinking recently that if I ever wanted to publish them in the future, how would publishers in particular react to my ackowledgements. I only accredit either two of my close friends on my novels because (yes, it sounds cheesey) but they have been a real inspiration to me. We drink coffee and knock around some ideas (they write books too), helping each other out when we faulter. I did physically grimace when you described how much you disliked these kind of ackowledgements. I also keep mine brief however: "Special Aknowledgement to ___ " and nothing more. There is of course a vast story to tell behind the novel itself, but I feel that should be kept to myself or put in Preface form (maybe even interviews? pardon the vanity).

I do mostly read ackowledgements out of curiousity about the author - in the same way I will read their short profile or google them. I never feel a great connection with them and never particularly find them Oscar speech-ish. Perhaps I read books by like-minded writers? Lol.

How would publishers react? In the same way as readers like you, or perhaps those readers that feel it a lovely touch. Doubt the latter actually.

Where has it come from?? I am dying to know how it came about! :)