Hey there my fellow creatures of the night!
I haven't really been myself lately. And given that I am now suffering from a tremendous and horrid case of fiction writer's blog (I cannot come up with a convincing premise for my next novel - screenwriting no problem; blogging's fine, but novels...) I have decided to motivate myself by writing about the real power of fiction.
I just finished reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi, and I want to share with you a few thoughts from the novel as well as my personal perspective on the power of fiction.
Just so you know... the characters of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" (that's the capital of Iran for those of you ignorants who don't know) lived in a severly opressed society from which they escaped by creating emotional bunkers made from blocks of fiction (both reading and writing)....
Cheers...
Here it goes:
In our world of greed, materialism, and crude realism, few people can remember a time where they did not imagine a better world or pretended they lived in a different society. And why shouldn’t we imagine a different place? After all, our consumer driven society has despised and dismissed all values that were once regarded as essential and imperative to the survival of lives. We live in a world that has somehow drifted away from the past and created a new, alternate reality, as if it were a completely different dimension altogether. Complexity now seems plain, lives are defied all the time, new enemies are announced and cursed within the hour and our busy lives leave no room for interpretation, we are what we are and there is nothing we can do about it.
Of course this world is not entirely superficial, and out of the billions of people that inhabit it, there are some that have ultimately decided to denounce our morbid realities and comment on it in elaborate parallelisms set in the distinctive world of fiction. Just like the characters in “Reading Lolita in Teheran”, many writers have decided to recreate our reality and harbor themselves from it in a fictional world ultimately based on such an actuality. Recreating such world however, is never an easy task and inadvertently we are forced to drift away from the truth and create a reality in the way that we see it, through our own eyes, through our own interpretation.
Fiction is part of reality. It is in essence a modified parallel of it, a reflection of what is actually happening, with different names, places and impressively similar situations. Reality is merely just a basis for fiction. Fiction merely elaborates and at times exaggerates what has happened, but ultimately serves the purpose of telling the story we want to tell; regardless of weather it has modified it superficially or not.
Depending on the actual events, on weather or not they were harsh, shocking or weather or not the creator has the purpose of the telling the story exactly how it happened is what molds the fictional narrative at hand. In the case of our story, Reading Lolita In Teheran, Asar Nafisi is determined to tell the story exactly as it happened, which makes the “fictional” story of Lolita nothing more than a reality. The same case goes on with books such as The Man Eater’s of Tsavo and the Voyages of Marco Polo, where reality is depicted as it happened, as if it were a first hand account.
There are other cases in which reality creates fiction by creating an elementary basis and elaborates on a basic idea to create a complete story that is only distantly linked to what actually happened. In these cases reality has affected the fiction but has not created in entirely, but rather creates its own story based on what happened. Clear examples of this are books such as Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels and of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
Incredibly, and as an advantage to writers, fiction can illuminate and elaborate on events in a way that reality could never achieve. Fiction can modify reality to fit the perspective and point of view of the authors, readers or publishers; it can create an insight into aspects of the story that could not even be viewed or perceived when analyzed in actuality. Fiction can create aspects of the story that either, never happened or could never be achieved even if they wanted them to happen because of impairment, be it a physical or mental one. Most importantly however, fiction can illuminate a situation that is aggravated by politics, religion or persecution. It gives the author it the ability to tell a story even when it is forbidden. It can depict the reality in a parallel universe, using pseudonyms and similar though not actual situations in a way that it is possible to tell the story at hand without risking incarceration, death or treason.
Even better is the fact that fiction can comment on reality in a way that could never thought possible. In many ways some might consider it better than denouncement through international periodicals, news reports or direct attacks. Fiction permits us to attack our aggressors with satyr, sarcasm, parallelisms and actions that even though in content could be virtually identical to the situation at hand, are practically different to what is going on and because of it the illegal concepts can be published, denounced and harassed, with the authorities being able to do little about it.
The truth is that fiction and reality combined are the ultimate and best weapon to destroy a fellow competitor, oppressor or rival. They permit us to depict reality in the way it actually happened, in a modified way, or in a completely parallel but still similar fashion. Fiction is determined, shaped and created by reality, but reality itself is illuminated and modified by fiction. They are both one and one is both, without one the other is nothing. They are both a wonderful too and when used adequately constitute a threat that is exceptionally difficult to contain, mainly because the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
That is all... I hope it wasn't too disappointing.
I'll see you in the future.
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."
Happy Hunting
The WikiVampire
I haven't really been myself lately. And given that I am now suffering from a tremendous and horrid case of fiction writer's blog (I cannot come up with a convincing premise for my next novel - screenwriting no problem; blogging's fine, but novels...) I have decided to motivate myself by writing about the real power of fiction.
I just finished reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi, and I want to share with you a few thoughts from the novel as well as my personal perspective on the power of fiction.
Just so you know... the characters of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" (that's the capital of Iran for those of you ignorants who don't know) lived in a severly opressed society from which they escaped by creating emotional bunkers made from blocks of fiction (both reading and writing)....
Cheers...
Here it goes:
In our world of greed, materialism, and crude realism, few people can remember a time where they did not imagine a better world or pretended they lived in a different society. And why shouldn’t we imagine a different place? After all, our consumer driven society has despised and dismissed all values that were once regarded as essential and imperative to the survival of lives. We live in a world that has somehow drifted away from the past and created a new, alternate reality, as if it were a completely different dimension altogether. Complexity now seems plain, lives are defied all the time, new enemies are announced and cursed within the hour and our busy lives leave no room for interpretation, we are what we are and there is nothing we can do about it.
Of course this world is not entirely superficial, and out of the billions of people that inhabit it, there are some that have ultimately decided to denounce our morbid realities and comment on it in elaborate parallelisms set in the distinctive world of fiction. Just like the characters in “Reading Lolita in Teheran”, many writers have decided to recreate our reality and harbor themselves from it in a fictional world ultimately based on such an actuality. Recreating such world however, is never an easy task and inadvertently we are forced to drift away from the truth and create a reality in the way that we see it, through our own eyes, through our own interpretation.
Fiction is part of reality. It is in essence a modified parallel of it, a reflection of what is actually happening, with different names, places and impressively similar situations. Reality is merely just a basis for fiction. Fiction merely elaborates and at times exaggerates what has happened, but ultimately serves the purpose of telling the story we want to tell; regardless of weather it has modified it superficially or not.
Depending on the actual events, on weather or not they were harsh, shocking or weather or not the creator has the purpose of the telling the story exactly how it happened is what molds the fictional narrative at hand. In the case of our story, Reading Lolita In Teheran, Asar Nafisi is determined to tell the story exactly as it happened, which makes the “fictional” story of Lolita nothing more than a reality. The same case goes on with books such as The Man Eater’s of Tsavo and the Voyages of Marco Polo, where reality is depicted as it happened, as if it were a first hand account.
There are other cases in which reality creates fiction by creating an elementary basis and elaborates on a basic idea to create a complete story that is only distantly linked to what actually happened. In these cases reality has affected the fiction but has not created in entirely, but rather creates its own story based on what happened. Clear examples of this are books such as Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels and of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
Incredibly, and as an advantage to writers, fiction can illuminate and elaborate on events in a way that reality could never achieve. Fiction can modify reality to fit the perspective and point of view of the authors, readers or publishers; it can create an insight into aspects of the story that could not even be viewed or perceived when analyzed in actuality. Fiction can create aspects of the story that either, never happened or could never be achieved even if they wanted them to happen because of impairment, be it a physical or mental one. Most importantly however, fiction can illuminate a situation that is aggravated by politics, religion or persecution. It gives the author it the ability to tell a story even when it is forbidden. It can depict the reality in a parallel universe, using pseudonyms and similar though not actual situations in a way that it is possible to tell the story at hand without risking incarceration, death or treason.
Even better is the fact that fiction can comment on reality in a way that could never thought possible. In many ways some might consider it better than denouncement through international periodicals, news reports or direct attacks. Fiction permits us to attack our aggressors with satyr, sarcasm, parallelisms and actions that even though in content could be virtually identical to the situation at hand, are practically different to what is going on and because of it the illegal concepts can be published, denounced and harassed, with the authorities being able to do little about it.
The truth is that fiction and reality combined are the ultimate and best weapon to destroy a fellow competitor, oppressor or rival. They permit us to depict reality in the way it actually happened, in a modified way, or in a completely parallel but still similar fashion. Fiction is determined, shaped and created by reality, but reality itself is illuminated and modified by fiction. They are both one and one is both, without one the other is nothing. They are both a wonderful too and when used adequately constitute a threat that is exceptionally difficult to contain, mainly because the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
That is all... I hope it wasn't too disappointing.
I'll see you in the future.
"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."
Happy Hunting
The WikiVampire
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