Hey everybody! First let me emphasize that I had my computer tower taken in to the shop and the hard drive cleaned out, then I changed all my passwords. As far as the virus on my computer is concerned you’re safe. It’s gone. Other viruses? They don’t come from me. I’ve been studying fiction for a few decades now and thought it might be fun to share. At the risk of being painfully obvious, different people like – or don’t like – different kinds of fiction for different reasons. For example I can’t stand ultra-violence and don’t take it in more than every three years or so, mostly because I tune in on it accidentally on the TV and can’t look away. I don’t like a lot of aggression either. Some folks love ultra-violence for really good reasons, sometimes because it makes their own lives seem safe or secure or happy by comparison. I have all the sympathy in the world for such a reason. (Real world violence used as entertainment is disgusting. There’s a difference between fiction and reality. I keep a clear view of it and my friends do, too.) What I do like in fiction is convincing realism. A piece of fiction that is a true illusion, it looks like life and persuasively feels and “smells” like life but it’s fiction. I like the same thing in art. Trompe L’Oeil or fool the eye, optical illusions. I find them charming. With fiction it is more complicated. I love a show or book that is very persuasive. I couldn’t call “The da Vinci Code” exactly persuasive but like the idea. The writer lied like a trooper that the story was true. He had an effrontery that could be put to positive use. I was just watching a few minutes of the latest Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, something about being shipwrecked. The story is silly, there are characters dressed up in costumes and the Chipmunks are CGI. You can’t believe for a second that it is reality, but there’s a more subtle problem. The plot. It’s too complicated. Involves castaways on an island where there is ALREADY a castaway, a live volcano, a very large cast. Real life? A real person may not have a confrontation of any sort for a month or more. If there’s a fireplace fire and you get it put out yourself and there’s a window three feet away, YOU OPEN IT! People with little experience don’t make remarks like they have a lot of experience. Old folks don’t sound like youngsters. Youngsters vice versa. An upset flower vase in one shot isn’t magically uprighted and dry in the next. A Roman centurion doesn’t have a digital watch, two Old West gunslingers don’t fight it out with a truck driving across the distant background. Those folks are paid a lot of money. They should earn it. The same with books. If a murder is being investigated by a small town sheriff, he doesn’t sit down with a member of the press and talk about what he’s discovered so far. Sorry, but that’s fairly ignorant. Anyway, that’s my taste and what it runs to and what I work toward. What’s yours? It’s welcome here.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 16:13:46 +0000
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