3rd Post
Today, we are writing about truth in fictional narrative. What are the REAL things that come out of fiction??? Let's see. The complaint here is that fiction, by it's very nature is FALSE, not real, is nothing but a pack of lies... But do we agree with this??? (By we, I mean "me" of course.) Nope. I don't by it. A "fiction" or a "story" has to be about something. Usually, the something that stories are about is PEOPLE. (I don't remember where I read it, sounds like a Joseph Campbell line, but I remember reading that people are primarily interested in themselves, or people like themselves. If they can't find themselves in a novel, they won't finish it...)
What we have then are people, doing people things. That's a bit general, so I'll give some possible examples: People falling in love with other people (like in Romeo & Juliet or most Woody Allen stories), people hating, fighting and killing one another (Godfather, Braveheart, and Star Wars, in novel, movie AND comic book formats), or People coping with death, for whatever reason they are forced to cope with it (Godfather again, or All the Small Things, or maybe The Bible, whichever version you prefer...) are all possible things that people in fiction might do that people reading fiction might find interesting, comforting, exciting, or better than "real" life. (Although I would definitely argue that reading a book IS real life and not an escape from it... How are you supposed to find a decent bookstore in "not-real" life???)
So, I believe that the "REAL" things that people experience and take from their readings are emotions, memories, perhaps a glimpse at a truth that is even MORE real than working from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm, fighting traffic, and falling asleep on the couch...
What we have then are people, doing people things. That's a bit general, so I'll give some possible examples: People falling in love with other people (like in Romeo & Juliet or most Woody Allen stories), people hating, fighting and killing one another (Godfather, Braveheart, and Star Wars, in novel, movie AND comic book formats), or People coping with death, for whatever reason they are forced to cope with it (Godfather again, or All the Small Things, or maybe The Bible, whichever version you prefer...) are all possible things that people in fiction might do that people reading fiction might find interesting, comforting, exciting, or better than "real" life. (Although I would definitely argue that reading a book IS real life and not an escape from it... How are you supposed to find a decent bookstore in "not-real" life???)
So, I believe that the "REAL" things that people experience and take from their readings are emotions, memories, perhaps a glimpse at a truth that is even MORE real than working from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm, fighting traffic, and falling asleep on the couch...
posted by Brave Raideen at 3:02 PM
2 Comments:
I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote that "what we have then are people, doing people things." Every author will have their own individualized story, complete with a particular setting, character(s) etc. However, certain themes tend to be revisited over and over again (love, death...). These recycled ideas had to originate somewhere; we look around the real world, and ah!! We find something to write about.
[is that why I'm so disapointed in the web?]
I know my particular dissappointment in the web is probably based on the current limitations in the technology. The original promise of the web was for a media device that would allow instant access to everything: Movies, classic books, music, public forums of discussion... And, instead, especially with old, phone-line based connections like I have, you get slow sign on, clumsily designed and incoherent web pages, constant needs for upgrades, and, when I do find something that I'm interested in it invariably takes hours to download and requires either a faster machine than I have or more complex software that itself takes more time to download. I expected a combination television, radio, library, and reference center. Instead I got a clumsy, inelegant, pain in the neck that has rekindled my love affair with the local bookstore and the public library.
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