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 TRUTH lN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
l>y
J.M. COETZEE

Autobiography is u kindof wriling in which you tell the sto ry of yourself as trutl!fully
as you can, or as t ruthfully as you can bear tv. Autobiography is u�uaUy thought of
not as a kind of fictivn·writiog but as a kind of history-writing. with the same
'
allegi�ucc to the IJ'utfo M hi•t•>ry has. . .. �
1 wan t to concentrate my attent ion on_one of thero. o� famous of autobiographies,
the one that i>egins with the W(>rds; .-. '

. ,ic
I am commcnci•lS an undertaking .. witbput,pf ed\\'nt.. • . l
want to set bofore·my fellow-men the likcnc�s •1(a mao in all tnc
ltulh of nallTC1 that man bei ng mySc l[· , ·

l ;un quot.i ng from theopcnins oftl1e Canfes,vion.,, the life-story whicb Jean-Jacques
Rousseau begau w ri ting when he was in hi s fifties, and which i>ecamc publi<.: in
I �H2, afte r his dc:tth..Within tbe Cottfe.,sioll.l' l will be concentrating on a siugle
episode, and on the issue ·il addrcssc•. namely, the cost of telling the truth.
In the passage l ref£r to (from Dook 1), Rousscau write.� about his attitude toward
ple asure, the pleasures one can buy and tb.e ple asu re s lhat come free. By nature,
Roosseau says, I am a very pa.�s io n atc pcrsoo. !Jut often I am inhibited from
satisfy ing my desires ty fear and shame. A mere !mowing gl aocc from� stra nger can
paralne me. FurUlcrmorc, th e re is a who le rru1ge of dcs.irable objects which I am
prevented !Tom cnjoyong by a peculiarity of my character. These objects are the
dass of obj e cts that l:ave to be bought. "Mo n ey poisons all . "
Women wh•; could b e bought tor m<loley woul d lo•c. as far as 1
am wnccruc.i, al l their cbanns: I e ven doubt whether it woul d be
in me t<;> m.1ke use of them . . • Ifind it thc s:omc with allpleasures ... :
unless they cost me noth ing, I fin d them in s ipid.

Why i s desire poiso1cil for .ltousseau wheo he has to b uy what. he wAnts� The first
explanati on he ofiC:rs, as he trie s to get to the truth ofthe matter, is that his.mnke-up
is simply sucb t.hat ml exchang eit�volvingmoney always becomes an w1fair one."Jf
1 p�y a high price for " fresh eu, it is st:ilc; for a ni�e pic�e of fruit, it is unripe; for a
tjrl, sh e is spoilL..
He e,oesoJrto tell " Hory to illustrate what day- t<Hl ay life is like for a person witl•
his peculiarity of character. He �leJ" into a cnke-shop, and U1e women in thc.sl>o1>
-
seem to l>e l aughing at him. Ho wants to gil into u fr uit shop, but con't d<> sn
!'urreptilionsly eJ•ougfl: he is ''" short-sigl\ted thAt e�eryone aroun d him looks like
someooe he knows.

Everywhere I am intimidated, res tmin ed bj• some obstacle or

othe r ... J return home like a l(>OI, con sumed with l ongin g,
having in my pocket the means of sfttisfying my longing, yet not
l;aving the cc>urase to buy anyUoin g.
Self-allalysis which goes no deeper than tlllk nbout "peculi arity of character"
s atisllcs no ,.,ne. I s the deeper ll".lth that Rousseau is asbamcd of his desires'! Is the
truth that he is stingy? It would be shameful to have to admit tl1c truth of either of
these explanations. The more shameful of the two is perhaps U>e second, the
confession Q( stinginus. Nevertheless, Roussca11 is prepared to confron t that 2
possibility. There is cc'rtainly in me, he says, an inconsistency, an "almost sordid
avarice" u.niled with tlie "greatest C4lntempt o f r mooey." Contempt for money
together with llll inability ooletgoofit certainly a strange combination. Out there is
a way of understanding il For, as long as you possess money, Rou.�euu �-uggcsts,
money remajns "an instrument of freedom." OIIOC you have spent it, on the <>lhcr
hand , you hav e to begin purs ui og it, and then il becomes "an instrument of'sl:lvcry."
Tltercfore spending monc)• is like spendins your freedom, whi le keepinp. it is lke i
keeping your freedom.

But ifmoney stands for freedom, we ask, why should y<1u feel contempt lor il'' The
reason is a very simple oue, Rousscuu replies. Money.viandsfor frccdum without
being freedom. To de si r e money in itself is to muke the mistake ot' eo11fusing the
signans with the signatum. lt is like laking u picmre of an apple for a real apple. And
tbal, Rousse11 u cooclodes, is why I prefer to steal things rather than buy them.

This is a Oahbcr&a sting conclusion to come lo. ·n•e bole in tltc lnt�ic i> n gaping
one. From the asse ttionlhatmoncyisu mere sir,n ofan exch�ngc vnlue, unworthy in
itself of being de si red, il by I)(> means foUOWl> tl•�t the mediation of money between
myse lf and wf•ull desire spoils or (to u�c Roussenu's word)pQiSOIIS my e11ioymcnt
ofllle cake or Ote apple or lh<> woman or whatever. And indeed, Rou.�.<cau make� an
oblique admission that he is aware �·f lhe gnp in his argumeot As yo u follow the
story of my life, he promises, you will gradually get lo ko(IW "my real
temperament," and then you will begin to "unclcn<land :tll tltis. without my taking
the tt oub le to tel l (you]." ln other words, he contrast s analytical understanding
(undersUinding of the kind he has thu' tur fniled to provide) with .wme kind of
intui tive undcrstnnding. perhaf>" the intuitive understanding one has ofa persou ouc
has known for a long time.

I
But we do not have to let the matter re�I 1\lhcre Rousseau does. We ure e ntitl ed to
press for any kind ofundcrst.undins we desire (01at i�. 3i'lcr all. partof wh�t it meaus
IQ be a rc(l(/�r). So let us pu t nsidc Rousxcau's own explnnntiOJL< of his
I
"peculiarity." hi� "contradiction" (explanations that �r·e, after all, only readings of

I
his ow n) and turn back to the shop scenes he hus described. What is it U1 at makes lhc
transaction tl1at l11kes 'rl<lce in shops, U1 e lruns;tction knowo as buyin11, "'' <lifficult
for Rousseau'! What strikes me ab<>ut Roussenu's account of huying is the
nakedn�·.t or the transaction, n nakednc�s from which .Rousseau shies aw>oy
though what I C311 nakednCl>� people witll<) ut Rousscau's "peculiarity" might call
I
I
merely O{>Cnness or legitimacy. )}y goin& into a shop and proiTcring muney and
saying, "I want that cake," Rous sc ..u would be consenting to particii).1IO in a nu•le
of treating his own desire, his own "I want," as if it Were m•l unique but were Ooc
same as Ote desire vf every Tom, Dick a11d ll:trry who wnnls a c� ke . His desire, that
is to say, would be bro�ghl <1ul inlo thc o:>pen nnd equalized witJ1 tltc desires of others
through lbe mediation ,,r the system of exchange k nown :�s money. Wt>rsc,
.Rousseau's desire would 1101 on ly he lrcutcd as c>chnogenble wit h tl>c clcsirc of
Tom, Dick or Hnrry, hu t put on a sea/eo!' desire. It would become a five-sou desire,
exchangeable with uny other five-sou desire: the m<M1CY sy�tem would give it tltc
same v•due ns the desire for eleven clotbespegs o r two thirds vf a bnr of �oap or
eig)lty millilitresofink. lt wouldno longct be hi<de.o<ire; rather, itwould be :>live- SOil
desire which ho is experiencing. whic:h is passing throug)l him. i(lj t>recisc worth
known by all the knowing eyes ill the �hop. He will lulve lost control �·f the terms < m
which he will make his desires k.l)(1wn. I f be chooses to think of his desires as
resources, then he wiU have spent one of hi� rewurce.o<.
 To exchange a desire lor a cake for the �;ak� i��u·, via lhc secret transaction of
lhcft, on U1c other hand, me a ns !hat the mystery ofthe de.• ire not only persists burin
a certain wa y js augmcntc<l What kind· of dc.•irc for a ca�e is it that cannot be
salisr.cu with a bought cake? That is, after all, th e question we are still p uzzling QUr
hea ds over two h undred years afw Uoc e sions were made
Ca�(s public. A desire
wh.QSC vaJue is k��p t secret increases in fa_scination and therefore in vaJ . ue: Rous:;e au
would not h•ve sto>lmo Uoc oakc (our reasoning goes) if his desire bad been a mere
!ivc-sou dcsirc,satistiublc by a five-sou cake; tbc cake muststandji>rsom.eU1ing we
do llOt know; tloc cake must be nol only a cake but" •ign, a clue to the truth. So the
i cake ;, >tolen and eaten am/lhc value of the desire for it(if not the desire itself) is
I tctaincll lt i:- rt tain ed �s a resource which, to the d egrc·c that i:t is mysterious,

1[
f'aschtating� iHicH, shameful, ccm be exchanged for words io tltc cuKiomy of
cm•rcsri
. on.
The system of ndoa ngc rejected by Roussc ao is one in which desire ;, exch anged
li>r a money equival ent which i' tnen exch :ll!ged f<>r the object. There is no need,
l
·I indeed nu way (mHilhi' is the trouble with them) of reeling shameful about Ulese
public cxcbnnges. In the economy of confession� on tl1c other hand, . everythi ng
shameful is v"luablc:-cvc[y secrei ur shameful il(;peiite is coifi c ��iblt!corrency. .
S me equivalence of the shameful to the valuable, we m a y note' iil pas.:�f1ng:
(The a
holds in tloc case of pornography. Pornography lives by pr<>mising to u nveil
forbidden spectacles. However� it "Caonol mak.; it}: promises openly. 'For. our
rcas{ming would go, if l )t)l'llogmphy <.: an mak.eopen promises, then what it promis e..�
cannot be forbidden. Thc.refore pornography ha> to undtrtakc the paradoxical
cxcrci�e of O"tdvertising it....;cJf in secrecy. or at lea st with t;t sufficiently conv incing
prelcncc or sccrcc;y. <.:cnsorship. insofar :1s It represses pornogra ph y into a life of
.secrecy, works band in gluv�; wit h it.)

We begin to sec now why Rousscao cannnt aDOrd to cany his investigations
furll1cr thao he does; wh;•, having offered us a glimpse of his peculiarity, he must
rct mct .i t, wrapil up again. 'l'ime after time in the Cmrjessions� Rou,<iScau performs
[he douh fc movcmc11t of otle
' rin g to _.;;pcnd onc <lfbfs mys terious contradic tions� then
withd(:lwin.g iC in o n lcr tl) maintain the freedom whkh. jn his system. bclO(IgS to

I those who hold tltcir a>>cls .in reserve. If you take away I he la,�t veil 811<.1 arc left with
oo mystery, no futl11cr confeosion is nccc'"''Y The risk: of true confession is
·
I there tore not to lhl' >elf but to the life of the medium. If you reveal the inner
operations or Utc economy of contession, you kill the goose tltat lays the go lden

I
cgg.IO.

'fhcre is a no ther way in which we can see tbal Roussca u cannot a.fford to carry
seU'- anaJysi s t o t.tc4m.,;lusion. why aoalysis must hrcakotTor tnk:e n wrong turning <)T

I, illclude a naw. a gap. " 00/l sequit ur. Il is Ufllikcly t])at, in 1766, when he penned
Utoxc ;unbitious words ahfwl 01c Hundcrt."1.king wlthoul precedent'' he wns a bou t to
commence, Ro\lf>scau knew the truth he was undertak ing lo tell. What he started
�ilh. I W()ultl t�uc ....:-: , was rather .n desire h> Lell UH� truth (or, to be more: accurate, a
(.]cslrc in which telling the truth wa� to be more or less lmplicaLcd). From there on it
was a mau"r i,f fin din g U1•L iri his history and in himself which would answer this
complex and (it would turn out) ambivalent desire-to-the-tmth. To other words, we
..!'"" equally well see Ihe conle ssioua l enterprise ''" ooe _ofjifldn i
i lhelriiuo ai·i;f
/:d/ing th c.tn1th; :rnd in eit her case gelling lo the tru· U1 carries a lhrca4 namely· i.hi:
Umial of ending the cnter�>dse. _ · ·· ···

There is :ol soa Uoird way of talkingabout tbetruUt. ·nocrc is a sense in whicn , going
ovCr the histori of his life frorn a SJX-cjfic point in time, tbe time of wri��i ·an
autobiographercanbe said eo be making the truth of his life. The gaPii aou evasions,
perhaps evenill
eliCS. -ire11WiitefemeniS .ofilic ·11fC: stiii)i, ·efeinents of the makin�> of
the story, elementsof the maker of the story. Telling the story o f your life (this line <Jf
reasoning would go) is not only a matter of representing th� past- the day wheu you
visited the cake·shop- bul also a matler of representing the pres e n t in which you
wrestle to c�plrun to yourselfw�at il waR tl1at really happened tl1at day. beneath the
surface (so to speak), and write down nu explanation wbich may be full of gaps and
evl\sions but at least. give..� a reprcse.ntntiou of t11c motions of your tn in d as yuu try to
understand you rself. Indeed. the lie• and evasions !nay be more i:nterc.sting U1an Uoc
visit itself. (In some models of�ychoaMiysis, we might note, the a naly st, listening
for the truth of the patient, listens n ot for the patient's tr u ths , U1c truUts the patient
fonds or tells, but for the patien t's lies aud silences and cv"'• ions, helieviJtg that there
iic tbe clues to the "iea l" tnJth. The patient's l ie becomes the analyst's truth.)

It is this third notion of truth as something y ou ma ke t!lat Rousscu u is pushed into

subscribing to. He writes:
I will write wha t comes tom e r will change (mystyle( accmding
,
to my mood . . . • r will express everything as 1 fed it, as 1 :lee it,
withou t affectation (i.e ., without prc.,cnting myself as what r•m
notj. without constraint.. without being upset if the r esult is a
mixtt•re. J will give myself up simultaneously to the memory of
the imp ressi on 1 r eceived(in Uoc past} and to [my) prcscntfcdine
I about itJ, thus giv ing n twololtl, t-wo-level depiction of\pcindmi
dbublmuntl the •tal� of my sf.1ul.
There we have it tbe two-level depiction in which the fai lu re to get to the tmth ofthe
past(W�y. truly, could I not.buy t�c cake?) is compensate<! for by a representation,
carried on at unconscivu::> IGvels of language, of the twi�ts and turns ofa tni nd tryin5
to get to grip� wiU1 itselt: We arc moving into the re <llm. that is l<> say, of
authe11/iciry: whether Rousscau i� telling the truU\ or l ying. lo us or to h i mself or to
everyone , at least he is wh,.,l(y committed to wha t he h doing, and we aJC being given
a sight of the truth of that commitment.

There is something lishy,ooe m ust •l on cc sny, in the ootiou that;oulhcnticity is as

good as truth. The sclf,.erving si de to the n otiou was ridiculed by Rou�c�cau ·�
harshest critic, Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose 110vcls arc full of people c herishin g lies
about themselves in tlte belief that the truth i s not g]nmoro1". that it is more
imponan t to be interesting Uoan to lie good. To J)ost.ocvsky, confession, pcoa nce
and forgvi eness (es.<enti•lly selt�lorgivcness) go t ogether_; oo hope tu �ltaiu the truUo
of one's life-story by self-interrogation merely lands one in a n endless oegrcssioo.
since any position one settles on nl\ t.ht} truth, however u nk inU it may be, can be
subjecte dto sce pti cal questioning. For c�llmplc: "But am l not lying to my>clf! Atn
l n<>t making myself out to be wor se than 1 am in order t<l make myself feel g<>l>d
about my ruthless honesty?" Dnstocvsky's critique of th e hrand of secu i>)l'
confession he asSQCiates w ith the name of Rousscau is an incisive one: but t<1 folliJVI
it would take me too far from my subject.

The word around whic h l have been circling for S(>mc time withou t setUin� is
sincerity, whicb I define as the irrune dia tc presence of !!le moral ell'
s to the self.
Surely, one might argue, all sig nific an t questions aboultrutllfulness in autob io­
graphy can be re sta ted M questions about lhc sincerity, U oa t is, the mora l self­
lcnowledgc of the autobiogmphcr, and given •imple answer.•- Su rel y sinc eri ty i s
some kin d oftouchstone. Surely wha tever is written in a spirit of s incerity is, in some
scn�c, true·.
 The prublem is, how can we know whether a man who wrote a book two hw1dred
years ag o w;ts sincere'! Are we not reduc.ed to scrutinizing hi:;: lan.g.u�ge for sigus
which one c,Oscrvo r mightca.ll lap�es into ihsincerity but aoolherobscrverfailures of
couf -::ssioua l rhetoric? lfwc look into it� genealogy, does si ncer ity not begin to loo\
rnorc and mol'e like n concept invented, or elevated to a cemral position, by
Romanticism tn privilege certain utterance!-! as not ha vin
g been engendered by
rhctorio and lhcrcthrc as be loogio& to an a rt above art? Sincerity, in this reading,
hccomcs the master-term of a new anti-rhct<.>rical rhetoric, an iuvc nlitm of d evi lish
inge nuity, in that it cla ims to.5tand outs ide all systems of r hc u)J'ic . The que.stion� that
wet as post.-Dostoevsklans, arc cntitlud to ask of the inventors of siuccrity is: cui
bo11u? W«� Utc abot•lutc of s ince>it y invented in a .<piri! ofsincerity"? Whatever way
the questi4,.'>n i� arl.ftiwcrcd. lhc concept of sincerity i�, tn use Rou�scnu�s tenn,
puis<>nf!d (which is not tu Nay t.hat it dies:- we all know bt)W it lives on).

The a ltemativc we should cot,.i der is a twofold one: llta� on ll•c one hand, truth
tnay be indispen�ahlc l(J autobiography; and,on the other, lhat it may serve a purely
heuristic funct(ou. That is to say, wh il e nn thc ooc hand it may be impossible to g e t
from point A topuinlB in autobiograplly wjthoul invulvingyoun;:elfin a quest for the
truth of tbe past. all that U1o yuest may ace<>mplish, o n lhe o ther ha11d, is to get you
from point A �' JX•inl U in the text. TruU1 may be lhc heart of autobiography, hut that
is not to say that truUt ;, at t he heart of nutobiogmphy. Them arc troths it may cost
'"" lfluch t<> tell, !l(>t because they lie 1<\0 clo"c to the nutobiogrnpbcr's heart hut
bt·causc they )i�.": too c1o.''iC to his nrt. (One !-mch tmtb woukJ he the a nswer to the
questi(lll: What is thu pla(c nf tru th in nutobioy,raphy?) it;, nnt insincere, orn{Jl
.mcn.:fy ins-intcn:� tc) fa il to come ont with these truths. An autobi ographer is not only
,. man who OllCC upon a lime lived a life in which he loved, fought, su.JTcrcd� :-;tn>vc)
w:�s misuni cr::; LooJ , and <)fwhich h e now tells the story; he i:.; alw a man engaged in
...
• writing a ""'1'· That story is wrillun within the limits of a pact. the ract. <>f
au lobi,)g.r aph y, one of the many pact� ncgotiatt::U ove r theyeo rs het'\li.•een writcrn anti
readers (and always open tu renegotiation) tor each of lhc genres nnd sub-genres,
P'tc.;b,: whit:h '"over, Hm()ug uthcr U1iugs, what tlcnl and� may he rnadc of each gcnri.!
and wh at may not) whul questions Jnay 00 asked and what mn y not, what one may
.sec and wh�.u one musl he b li nd lo. (Another of rhc chluscs is that one sh.aU he blind
to the cxiste.ncc of !he. pat;t.)
Yet (nnd now we come t o the heart of this l ecture} h"ve l not, in unveiling whal T
seem to lk� t.�laiming to be U1c ;>ccrct. 9f the economy of Roo;\�cau·� Conje.\wiom,·,
broken lht..: very pac,;t.l have been talking. aboun On the one hand I cla. irn that reading
a utob iography requires a convcntiun ofbiU)dness; on thl�otllcr 1 rcud Rousseau wit!l
my eye� wide open. By myQw.ndc.finition, t:an the activityJ hnve been engaged in be
t·a lted rca(lin� nuwl>iogrnplty? And if Ihe answer ;s, No, I h ave nol hccn reading
nutot)i()�raphy, I havel been cn.gage<i in a diUCrent activity caHcU literary criticism�
which s11tuuits h1 no rules, then I cr.n ask: If the de sire of literary crit icism is to tell
every trull•, lO u nv e il whatever is v�H.c� to expose very secret to sig ht. why does it
HO! tel l its <H'-'U sccrcL�? Or does it claim to h ave none? I say (though ""on the one
hand," whateYer that may mea n) that truth is merely heuri•tic, yet in the secret U1a1
"'crcls hdd clme to the chest arc val uabl e I r.nd the tn1th wltich Rou•sca u cntu\ot
01ffvrd \(> con•c out witb. I sny tbat autobioga
r phy cunnot tell it• own truth, and tell
the truth it <:annot tell. Does that not make of critic ism the only mode in which final
1111ths c�m be told: aod how sJnccro is thm?
· i'hc question I mu <•skiug is one aboott"·ivill,ge. What privilege do I c laim to tell
the truth ofRou sscon that Rousseau cannot te ll? Wha t si the p riv il ege oferiticism by
which it da im!oi to tell the tn1th of 1itcr.aturc'!
 6

I do not propose to ans wer this question. ln•tead, I want 11> ca refully count the
cost of answering it. Is it not possible 111at to tell what the privilege of cri tici sm over
literature is would be to tell a truth that criticism cannot afford totel l, namely, why it
wants the literary text to stand there in all it.< ignoran<:<:, side by side widtthe rndia.nt
tl'lltboflhe'textsupplicd by criticism, without the latter supplanting the former" Can
literarycriticism afford to say why it needs literature' (On the other hand, we migh t
consider that this question may be formed fal sely . Fur we koow that a question may
bestated so clealyr that no one can be blind to its answer. Would it be in kccping f<>r
.criticism to pose the question so clearly if it were the real question'!)

Let.me go bac k and ovcl'Simplify. The framework widtinwhich 1 have been talking
is a framew ork of economics, and the question 1 have continually hcon asldng is:
Wbatdoes each revelation I make cost? 11 has been important to me- or at least it
has beenmy de.sire-10 depersonali7.C thisque..,lion, not to ask it as a question of the
sincerity of the writer. What T have hcen treating as at stake has been the life· of the
dis course itsclf.ln terms of the economic lihooftbe discourse . it someti me.' "'"L' too
much to make certain revelations: Ibey threaten the ability of the disc,, ursc 1<1 t;mw.
they thr eate n its fre e dom. Rousscau was· right, in Ws paJticular contcssional
economy, to point to what is held back (money, the truth) as being the key to
froedom, though tltc freedom I have bee.o looking to ha' been the freedom of the
autobiographical Ji:;coursc its elf. AU forms of discourse may have secret,, of no
great profundjty,which they ne v erth ele ss cann ut affunl tu un\'cil . Discourse ist from
a c ertain poinl of view, a rather siJnpJc thi ng , fully uc�cribcd hy lwo simple
statements: one, that it goes on; and two, that haviuggone l'ar�!lough. it stops. The
present discour se llas gone on; now it sto.ps.

<) J.M. Coetzec, J9S5