to the question, “what should fiction do”:
Debra di blasi says:
In the beginning was the word
And the word gave human apes dominion over other apes
And the word showed man and woman they were naked and made them like god
And the word cast them from the garden of innocence into the desert of ego
Where the word divided and multiplied, mutated and evolved
And the word created cities and machines, laws and religions, weapons and wars, music and song, love and revenge, poetry and fiction
And the word created more words that created new beginnings that created new possibilities
When and only when the word was read and understood
DOESN’T IT
Writing does. It does in advertising, in newscasts, in sexual murmurings. It does in video games, in MP3s, in sitcoms. It does, sometimes beautifully, in fiction, poetry, and dreams. We cannot stop writing from doing because we are because it does.
SHOULDN’T IT
I try to keep my shoulds to myself — though I confess to losing patience every now and then with writers who shouldn’t but do anyway because they’re lazy, or caught in some isolated academic interpretation of what writing is, was, will be. I’m not so fascist that I believe everyone should be on the same page, pun intended. John Grisham should be doing what he does because it is what he can do. (He admits he wishes he could write literary fiction, but his attempts have proved fruitless.) In my times of near poverty I’ve wished I could do the tripe of Danielle Steel (under an assumed name, of course); but I could not. And thus should not. My fascination with language always took me deeper into the music and dance of it. As Alice discovered, that rabbit hole is deep. And deeper.
CAN IT
Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo could-did. Margaret Atwood’s Murder in the Dark could-did. Walter Abish’s How German Is It could-did. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. My question to me is how? Why? Because I want to do, too.
P.S.
Mourn the lost ship of attempt, like Montaigne’s essais (lit trans. trials or attempts) when to try was a satisfactory goal rather than to succeed. Then was exploration vs. manufacturing. Now is product vs. process.
Zack Wentz says: I don’t feel entirely certain in regards to what “writing” even is just
now. I must admit that I have a lot less faith in the effectiveness of the printed word than I used to, but at the same time there seems to be more writing, and reading, going on than ever before (via the internet). Of course most of it is un-edited, stream-of-self-PR rubbish, but the sheer cyber-bulk of it is beyond overwhelming. What writing can do, at one extreme, is bore you into not reading it before you even really get started, or throw you into a state that is so beyond description the words you’ve processed have become keys to the gates of the Ineffable (writing at
its best). The type of writing that produces the latter effect has become rare.
I’m not sure if this is because of the fact that a lot of the best of it is only speaking through/to other writers/students of literature in an academic/post-academic context, or because books (especially of the fiction/poetry variety) have almost completely lost their viability in popular culture. A considerable bit of both, I’m sure. At the same time I don’t think this situation is entirely bad. It has, and will, force writers (and writing) to hybridize and adapt. What writing should do is, undeniably, a moral call. In my opinion that “should” is changing how people feel in a way that actually changes how they act.
Unfortunately, that “should” can be fulfilled by the shoddiest of online journalism/blogs/propaganda, but on the flipside people can be so moved by a particular piece of work (usually something hovering in that vibrant area between the beautiful and the grotesque) that, for better or for worse, after reading it they will never be the same. The best writing should
hurt people in a good way*. As for myself, I do, genuinely, write because I have to. The can, should, etc. are largely afterthoughts. “Should” is too broad—a driving demon/angel in the conscience that never fully reveals itself. I’ve mostly been busy learning (and unlearning) all my
“shouldn’ts” as I’ve gone along. They have been much more helpful. That Other thing I’ll probably come closest to (if I’m lucky) right before I die. I can only hope we’ll recognize one another . . . embrace.*No coincidence that the concept of S+M is largely literary in origin, eh
Shane Hinton says: I came home the other night and Fiction was passed out on the couch, hand down her pants, electrodes hooked to her nipples with tiny alligator clamps, limp smile across her lips. Disconnecting the wires from the battery I knelt next to her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and gently shook her until she woke up.
“We can’t go on like this,” I said to her in a voice which coyly attempted to console her. Her bloodshot eyes slid over to the battery and then up to mine.
“I looked for you on television tonight,” she said after a mortgaged silence. “You were there, in strict narrative form, stiff-collared, looking grimly over news events and headlines.’”
I lowered my head and looked at the floor, at the battery and the wires hanging from her nipples over the edge of the couch, knowing that we were never going to understand each other. Hooking herself back up to the battery, humming along with it in a hairy semblance of synchronicity, Fiction pulled the blanket up to her chin and rolled over.
