May 3, 2010
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Fiction is good, fiction is bad
Fiction can be a good thing because it is entirely indirect; we’ll listen to authors because we know they aren’t writing about us. They lived somewhere else, knew other people, lived other lives. So they’re not criticizing us. We would be too stunned with offense to listen if that were the case.
And so we are open to noticing flaws in the character that we might then see in ourselves. Our lives might be superimposed as the protagonist in the work, and we finally realize that we’re an idiot. From the third-person perspective we see our tragic flaws. I have all the sense of entitlement possessed by Anthony Patch, and I jump to conclusions just as quickly as Briony Tallis.
Yet fiction also has the downside of feeding our narcissism; by there even being a protagonist we see our life as more and more a story all about ourselves. Read A Portrait of the Artist or The Bell Jar—which have the assumption that everything is all about Stephen, or that everything is all about Esther—and you will become obsessed with your own perspective of life as naturally as a rabbit going stiff at the smallest hint of danger. And as narcisissts we tend to judge other people more quickly, since it is our interpretation of things which is after all important.
That’s why the Gospels are so great; the assumption while reading them is that it’s not all about you. The Gospels are filled with stories about how different individuals respond to Jesus; to one he says ‘You have great faith!’ yet another walks away sad, for he had great wealth. And so which story do we imagine ourselves in? Which character in the Gospels are we?
But the great thing is that no matter who we imagine ourselves as in the Gospels, we are not the main character of the story. For how depressing would it be to think that our own story is as good as it gets? I’m just not big enough to be the main character of the universe. There needs to be a bigger story than this.
For after all, humanity is a really big thing; isn’t there a story that includes everybody in it?
Comments (6)
A story that maybe talks of eternity moving the beginnings and endings and new beginnings that speak of eternity. We are part of that redemptive history, but like you said not the main character.
How can we all be the main character… hum… ????
As someone who has rediscovered reading recently, this is a wonderfully thoughtful and timely post.
and yet, when we do need to realize that a passage in question may be pointing out the plank in our own eyes, we like to conveniently forget that, to point out the speck in our brother’s. good thoughts, guy.
@thegirlxfiles -
Yeah! Once I heard a sermon that made that point so well . . like about the story where the tax collector goes into the temple and beats his chest saying, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And then there’s the proud pharisee going, “Thank you God for making me not like evildoers and tax collectors.”
The pastor – great guy – talked about how we always look at the pharisee and go “Yeah! What a bad guy! He doesn’t get it all!”
The pastor’s comment:”The irony here is deep . . .”
Thanks muchly for your reading and comments, by the way.
you are very welcome.