Can Fiction Be Truer Than We Tend to Be?

 

Can Fiction Be Truer Than We Tend to Be?

 

            Works of fiction are littered with the idea of our world under a new unyielding control, and only sometimes for the sake of our protection and safety. What makes a person want to force another into submission, for good or evil intentions, and furthermore...why are such character faults important to a good story? Margaret Banning defines the word fiction as “Imagining based on facts” and Edward Albee describes it similarly as “Fact distorted into truth”. Truth be told, Fiction is a peculiar, often elusive... creature.

            Ray Bradbury’s  Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 by George Orwell were both required reading during my high school years. Author Madeleine L’Engle also  wrote a series of young adult books, of which A Wrinkle in Time may be the most easily- recognized title. Transporting the reader to other worlds in space and time, she showcased the faults within each. Adrienne Rich’s volume of poetry Dark Fields of the Republic questions “When does a life bend toward freedom? Grasp its direction?”, offering timeless poems of warning as well as celebration.

            Details are everything; are they not? The first line of Fahrenheit 451 is a solid one: “It was a pleasure to burn.” Juan Ramón Jiménez is quoted on the opposite page “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” This book was written over fifty years ago, but we still struggle with groups (made up of individuals) who wish to ban ideas, burn books, kill freedom. The world continues to offer up much to write about.

            1984 contains an Afterword by Erich Fromm, where I find one passage underlined in blue pen:       “...can human nature be changed in such a way that man will forget his longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love—that is to say, can man forget that he is human?” My sixty-cent yellowed copy of 1984 has many markings, but it is not ready for fire; it can still be read. 

            Dark Fields of the Republic speaks for itself, as should any poem: “There’s a place between two strands of trees where the grass grows uphill near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows… [our country has] its own ways of making people disappear…” My favorite begins: “In those years, the people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you…” Next stanza: “But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather...” 

            As a society, we both fear and revel in the possibility that safety might be molded out of our present ingredients, such as our uncertainty…that others could “legally” be made to behave. Some make their case for control, i.e. If it is the law, how is it any sacrifice of theirs? They can’t possibly want to be that “wrong” way; can they? But what is “wrong”. In an ideal community, we would all do what we were made to do, but do I know what that is for me, for you?

            Have you ever stopped to look deeply at how passionate some people are in their faults; possibly their faults serve a purpose? Should the character of a fictional character be sacrificed for the petty idealism of the writer? ‘Thou shalt not restrain thy fictional character with personal opinion.’ Faults are golden! At least in fiction.

            Birthing a story and then making it so unlike its original inspired self that it no longer wants to be read…is almost hurtful. Shouldn’t we as writers let our stories develop into unique creations with almost a life of their own? Complete with sometimes maddening, sometimes funny faults, their readers will certainly fall in love, as we did… along the way… That is my hope for you and I. A new year is coming, always full of possibility.  Write on!    

 

Credits: Originally published in The Other Herald Dec. 2006 issue #2