Ever since I can remember I've been crazy about fiction. From the first time my parents pointed at a yellow puppy and read out 'This is Spot, See Spot Run!' I was hooked. The books I grew up reading now make up a major portion of my childhood nostalgia. I'm still an avid reader and can devour whole novels in days, sometimes even hours, often illiciting anguished pleas from my mother to 'please pace yourself...make the book last!' as I hand her a dog-eared copy of a book that's been everywhere with me -the bath, the toilet, bed- in the 24 hours since we've purchased it at WHSmiths.
Stories are at the heart of what I love about working in, and experiencing, the arts. I spent four years at university shuddering through classes on performance art, descriptive novels and abstract theatre pieces. If it didn't have a narrative it rarely touched me. I needed the story as a structure on which to hang the emotions and/or techniques of the piece, to make them make sense to me.
I'll read most types of fiction whether it be sci-fi, the classics or something downright farcical. However, what really strikes a chord in me is realistic, contemporary fiction, whether this is in a book, a play or a film. I know that many people find it boring and pointless to while away the hours plowing through a stranger's descriptions of and points of view regarding family life, work problems, romantic crises and more, when the majority of us could just step outside and experience them for ourselves. I understand why many can't see the reasoning in reading about the world's issues under cover of fiction when they could research them more accurately in a non-fiction paper or book. I comprehend all these views and, for a while recently, they consumed me as I wondered what exactly I thought I was doing by wallowing in this genre. Was I really doing anything worthy in the Arts by fabricating people and situations, by adding more emotions and confusion and nonexistent events to those already piling up in the real world? Perhaps, I thought, I should be reading political journals, economic papers and case studies of domestic and worldwide events?
For me though the existence of fiction makes perfect sense. So much of the media we're confronted with on a daily basis is contaminated in some way. The newspapers all have their own angle, as do politicians, and any interview you read/watch with a celebrity, actor, musician etc. will almost always be tweaked to ensure it promotes their brand rather than their truth. Every quote, every expression, is carefully placed to alert the reader that this is a cool person, a good person, a sexy person etc. I find it less honest than fiction. For me fiction is the genuine communication of an author's feelings, ideology and experiences. Working through the filter of a fictional narrative means that concerns and emotions can be shared almost anonymously, being contributed to the story and/or the characters rather than to themselves. For this reason, for me, this kind of fiction represents the most truthful medium through which to study our world, because it's never promising to be the truth, only one person's truth, and that's a reflection of the way our world works.
The celebrated Sixties photographer David Bailey once said that 'It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary'. I feel this way about literary realism. Though it may seem unimaginative and banal to rely on what's already here to create art, there are so many people in the world and so many situations, that there are never-ending opportunities to combine actions, reactions, opinions, situations, values, character traits and more. Each author brings a fresh perspective, perhaps taking the same sorts of characters and situations, but filtering their behaviours and outcomes through their own personal viewpoint and experiences. For example, if you're the parent of a disabled child and you read The Memory Keeper's Daughter you might find that the terrible words and behaviours of some characters in the novel are relevant to you, but are rarely communicated by people in your real life due to the nature and sensitivity of the situation. You could then pick up The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and come across an entirely different look at the topic.
In my life time so far I have come across so many wonderful people who have been partly or wholly inspired, affected or comforted by the fictional literary realism that they hold closest to their hearts. Whether it's music, art, acting or singing that's involved, the medical and psychological industries are becoming more and more open to utilising therapies that deal with their patient's truths through artistic mediums. Obviously, there is something about being able to filter reality through a fictional construct that can help it make sense or become digestible. Jodi Picoult is an author who deals with the difficult moral and ethical dilemmas so many come across in modern day life and her devoted readership reflects the effect her books have on so many. George Orwell's 1984 is a book wholly relevant to today's Western society as a whole, expressing disdain, warning and concern in a way that has retained its power over many years. Kafka's The Trial is still oft quoted as a true reflection of 'the system', the phrase 'Kafkaesque Nightmare' most recently used in an online forum to describe a frustrated woman's dealings with London Underground. 'The Colour Purple' lets us experience the emotional effects of being a black woman in the Deep South and, though humorous, Pride and Prejudice gets right down to the bones of the Victorians' preoccupation with wealth and status.
Some fiction is just that. Pure fiction. And some is simply the ramblings of a warped mind. Read intelligently, don't cut yourself off from the real world (e.g. the social miscreants who seem to read Catcher in the Rye as a call to commit misdeeds) and understand that you're reading fiction. But always be open to catching the message of the author, understand how human this character is, how wise that comment - enjoy the fiction and digest the truth.
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