Right and Wrong in Fiction
Goodreads has a somewhat peculiar policy, in that they allow an author to rate and review his own book. For a while I resisted this for what seemed to me sound ethical reasons. First, it felt blatantly wrong to boost the ratings of your own book by voting for it. And second, I’ve always felt a story has failed somehow if its author has to explain it. Any work that aspires to artistic merit is a statement that speaks for itself. The public is entitled to think of it whatever they will, because the author has had his say, and it is now their turn. He should not be entitled to further elaborate or defend himself.
Nonetheless, the weakness of human flesh being what it is, I eventually succumbed to temptation. So here is my review:
LOST HORSES – 5 stars
I notice in retrospect that my narrator’s voice in these tales advocates nothing, takes no sides, and passes no judgment upon the characters.
That’s not to say I don’t care, because I know these people extremely well, or like to think I do, and certainly have my opinions about them. But what I think doesn’t matter here, because my purpose was to recreate them artistically, hopefully well enough that the reader is left with something to ponder, and will want to pass his own judgment.
The same goes for issues like horse slaughter. “Wide River” raises some of the moral conundrums of that economic paradox, which is what I wanted to do. But rather than tell readers what they “ought” to think, I simply raise awareness of the issue in passing, during the course of what is essentially a coming of age story.
“Why Men Cheat in August” is likely inspired in part by Eric Rohmer’s French comedy Pauline at the Beach (1983), a depiction of how differently young people and supposedly mature adults see the same world.
“Whiskey Creek” is a stark depiction of the power of alcohol to destroy the moral fabric of a human being. It advocates neither the “disease” nor the “moral failing” theory of alcoholism, yet exploits that dichotomy to play a little trick on the reader. We first see Gus as a reprobate bereft of redeeming qualities, likely causing most to despise and dismiss him as unworthy of a story. Then he is unjustly deprived of his beloved Misty, and we feel whipsawed by an unexpected rush of compassion. The reader is left to work out what is to be made of this conundrum.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to use the omniscient third person voice with no point of view and without prejudice so that a reader is left with something to grapple with personally. That goes against the grain of much contemporary genre fiction in which we expect the author to leave no doubt about what we are supposed to think or how we ought to feel. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the pleasures of sincere genre fiction as much as anyone. But it is good to remember an author has a lot more choices than that; see, e.g., Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961).
I’m not a calculating writer and didn’t do any of these things deliberately. The book just came out this way. Looking back, I guess it must have seemed to me the best way to write these stories.
If anyone wants to kick the above literary comments around further, I’m open to discussion on my author’s page.
Nonetheless, the weakness of human flesh being what it is, I eventually succumbed to temptation. So here is my review:
LOST HORSES – 5 stars
I notice in retrospect that my narrator’s voice in these tales advocates nothing, takes no sides, and passes no judgment upon the characters.
That’s not to say I don’t care, because I know these people extremely well, or like to think I do, and certainly have my opinions about them. But what I think doesn’t matter here, because my purpose was to recreate them artistically, hopefully well enough that the reader is left with something to ponder, and will want to pass his own judgment.
The same goes for issues like horse slaughter. “Wide River” raises some of the moral conundrums of that economic paradox, which is what I wanted to do. But rather than tell readers what they “ought” to think, I simply raise awareness of the issue in passing, during the course of what is essentially a coming of age story.
“Why Men Cheat in August” is likely inspired in part by Eric Rohmer’s French comedy Pauline at the Beach (1983), a depiction of how differently young people and supposedly mature adults see the same world.
“Whiskey Creek” is a stark depiction of the power of alcohol to destroy the moral fabric of a human being. It advocates neither the “disease” nor the “moral failing” theory of alcoholism, yet exploits that dichotomy to play a little trick on the reader. We first see Gus as a reprobate bereft of redeeming qualities, likely causing most to despise and dismiss him as unworthy of a story. Then he is unjustly deprived of his beloved Misty, and we feel whipsawed by an unexpected rush of compassion. The reader is left to work out what is to be made of this conundrum.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to use the omniscient third person voice with no point of view and without prejudice so that a reader is left with something to grapple with personally. That goes against the grain of much contemporary genre fiction in which we expect the author to leave no doubt about what we are supposed to think or how we ought to feel. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the pleasures of sincere genre fiction as much as anyone. But it is good to remember an author has a lot more choices than that; see, e.g., Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961).
I’m not a calculating writer and didn’t do any of these things deliberately. The book just came out this way. Looking back, I guess it must have seemed to me the best way to write these stories.
If anyone wants to kick the above literary comments around further, I’m open to discussion on my author’s page.
No comments have been added yet.
