Stephen T. McCarthy STUFFS: F-WORD FICTION! (Or, HOW CAN YOU HAVE ANY PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT?)

Thursday, February 9, 2012

F-WORD FICTION! (Or, HOW CAN YOU HAVE ANY PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT?)

.
In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
~ George Orwell

LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner

CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller

THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

1984 by George Orwell

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell

AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway

ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger

A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London

THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach

Those are the titles found on Modern Library’s list of '100 Best Novels' that I have read at some point in my life. The majority of them I read in my late teens and early twenties. One exception is ‘Lolita’, which I read in 2010 or ’11. I shouldn’t say I “read” it because I didn’t finish it – I got only about two-thirds of the way through before deciding that my time would be better spent reading some nonfiction instead.

Of course, that hardly exhausts the list of fiction I read in my teens and early twenties; some of the books I enjoyed the most aren’t even found above. Titles such as: ‘Tortilla Flat’; ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’; ‘Roughing It’; ‘A Tree Grows In Brooklyn’; 'White Fang'; 'Look Homeward, Angel'; ‘Crime And Punishment’; ‘Green Eggs And Ham’, et al. And make no mistake about it: I thought Kerouac’s ‘Dharma Bums’ was much better than ‘On The Road’.

A comprehensive list of fiction I’ve read in my lifetime would be many, many times longer than the list posted above!

Not too shabby for a guy who denigrates novels, eh? Strangely enough, some bloggers here in my little bathroom of the Blogosphere probably think of me as: “That guy who hates fiction.”

I don’t hate fiction, and I don’t hate the writers of fiction. (Although they do sometimes irritate me to a noteworthy degree.)

Here’s the deal: I think there is value in reading fiction and everyone should have some knowledge of the classics. I mean, there is definitely a hole in your education if you aren’t familiar with Dickens’ character Uriah Heep; and if you haven’t read ‘Huckleberry Finn’ you have missed a couple of the all-time greatest chapters in the history of social commentary and the written word – namely, chapters 16 & 31. I could easily write one of my patented neverending blog bits about the spirit, psychology, and genius found in chapters 16 & 31 of Mark Twain’s ‘Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn’.

My argument, however, is that when it is plainly observable by anyone with even just two brain cells to rub together that our American society is crumbling down, falling apart, self-destructing before our very eyes, the truly intelligent and wise individual would spend most of their time reading NONFICTION, in order to learn about the world around him or her. And if he or she had a desire to write, that person would aim toward enlightening the world via powerful nonfiction, rather than another “made-up” story from which we are already overburdened!

Look, writer-wannabes, all the great fiction stories have already been written! You ain’t gonna come up with anything genuinely new! “There is nothing new under the sun.” (D’ya know where that quote comes from? No? Then you are not nearly as knowledgeable about the greatest Book on the planet as ya oughter be!)

When it comes to fiction, there’s nothing original left to say; you ain’t doin’ nuttin’ but repackaging something that has already been written before – and most likely BETTER!

Today’s writers of fiction are merely rewrapping old stories or putting multiple older stories into a blender and presenting the “mash-up” as if it were something new. But there’s nuttin’ new in fiction. All of today’s fiction is just one person’s or several persons’ ideas tweaked, twisted, groped, photographed and . . .

. . . wait a second! I’m supposed to be writing a blog bit about writing, not about flying.

See, my problem with fiction isn’t so much a problem with fiction as it is with American priorities. The average American on the street couldn’t begin to explain the Constitution and its Bill Of Rights. The average American on the street couldn’t begin to explain the history and the workings of the Federal Reserve System and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and yet those are the two biggest (secular) problems that the U.S.A. faces today!

Why are Americans so oblivious to the “real world” around them? Because all they know about politics is what gets nearly force-fed to them through their newspapers and TV sets. They COULD learn the truth quite easily if they focused more of their reading time on nonfiction titles rather than works of fiction. But nonfiction, they believe, is far less entertaining than is fiction. And they’re mistaken about that, too!

And most of the Americans (at least of the female variety) who dream of writing, dream of becoming the next J. K. Rowling, as if one J. K. Rowling somehow weren’t enough.

I have no problem with anyone reading fiction; I think it’s a good way to rest the mind from the really serious matters at hand. But fiction should be the dessert you treat yourself to after you’ve consumed the main course:

"If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

Now I’m willing to acknowledge that not everyone is going to prefer nonfiction over fiction to the same degree that I do. But, if you give the slightest damn about the world you live in, about the world you’re leaving to your children and to your children’s children, then nonfiction should/would represent at least 50% of what you spend your 'reading-time' reading.

And there’s a terrible misconception out there: By and large, people mistakenly think fiction is more exciting than nonfiction. IT’S NOT! One element that makes nonfiction MORE exciting to read is the fact that nonfiction is... REAL!

Believe it or not, for just about every wild, exciting, heart-stopping
E-ticket fiction you can find, you can also find real, true-life, NON-fiction stories that match it! There is almost nothing in fiction that does not have its counterpart in a biography or history book. “This world” is a hell of a lot more exciting, mysterious, violent, and remarkable than you could possibly imagine. All of the heroes, heroines, antiheroes, tragically flawed heroes, underdogs, rebels, spies, lovers, fighters, connivers, geniuses, and villains that we love to read about in fictional stories do exist in 'true-life' nonfiction books. You can find it ALL in the real world and recorded in great, awesomely memorable works of nonfiction!

From Agee, James and Bronte, Emily to Yeats, William Butler and Zola, Émile, fiction has been covered. As a writer, you might add quantity to it, but you’re not likely to improve it. If you simply must be rich and famous – if that’s important to you - then go right on ahead and continue writing fiction and reading mostly fiction.

But keep in mind that you are ~~fiddling~~ writing "while Rome burns". And unless the American people turn off their televisions soon, put away the latest Fantasy, Thriller, and Sci-Fi books and turn to the information found in nonfiction that can educate us and preserve our basic liberties, before long the only professional writing that ANYONE is going to be doing will be historical revisionism written on behalf of the Ministry Of Truth.

Allow me, please, to suggest some nonfiction reading material:

If you liked this fiction . . .