Alex Gabriel's Blog, page 3

The Gunfighter

Ever wondered about all the things you could do with an omniscient narrator?

Check out The Gunfighter, a hilarious and absolutely brilliant short film in which the characters of a Western run into an omniscient narrator. (There’s even some very touching m/m romance.)

Meta Rec: The Rape of James Bond

“The Rape of James Bond. On Sexual Assault, and ‘Realism’ in Popular Culture” by Sophia McDougall is a very interesting essay on the way rape is treated as a subject in fiction.

McDougall makes several excellent points about the fact that fictional rape is frequently treated as an expected part of “realistic” scenarios… but only when it happens to women. While fictional rape is commonplace for female characters, the rape of male characters – particularly traditionally masculine protagonists – is all but entirely unheard of. Despite the fact that it, too, would be more “realistic” under the circumstances these characters often find themselves in.

My summary does not do this thought-provoking essay justice, so I will hold my tongue and let you go read it for yourselves.

Fiction vs Reality

I have never liked fiction to have too close a connection with my lived reality. As far as I can remember, this has always been the case, and it’s a general thing that extends to fiction of all kinds, from books to movies to epic poetry to song lyrics. I don’t want to recognize places, things, people or setting details that have a direct connection to my own life.

The reason I don’t want fiction to intersect with my own, lived reality is that when fiction comes too close to reality, it interferes with my suspension of disbelief. I want to get into a different universe with fiction, not be reminded of the real one. Allusions to or reminders of the real world take away from the reality of the fictional one; they puncture the autonomy of the fictional realm, dragging it too close to the real world and forcing it to reveal its lack of reality by too-close association.

The real world also suffers from this comparison, though in a different way. But there is often disappointment inherent in the fact that the real world is not the fictional one; that it is flat and ordinary and not as fantastical, not as colorful and exciting, dramatic and romantic and poetic.

I know this is different for other people – both readers and authors. Many other people actively like fiction to intersect with their reality; I assume this is because they read or write with different expectations, and perhaps have less of a tendency to use fiction as a fully immersive escape from reality.

By the way: In no way does this mean I dislike intertextuality in fiction, and/or fiction that breaks the fourth wall. Not at all! In fact, I love it when the narrative is stretched and experimented with in such a way, when its boundaries are tested and its conventions breached. For me, that is an intellectual game on a literary level; it has nothing to do with the details of my mundane, everyday existence.

I love that “Nonsense Poetry” exists…

… and that the more you think about it, the less nonsensical it becomes.

Cold Are the Crabs

Edward Lear

Cold are the crabs that crawl on yonder hills

Colder the cucumbers that grow beneath,

And colder still the brazen chops that wreathe

The tedious gloom of philosophic pills!

For when the tardy gloom of nectar fills

The ample bowls of demons and of men,

There lurks the feeble mouse, the homely hen,

And there the porcupine with all her quills.

Yet much remains — to weave a solemn strain

That lingering sadly — slowly dies away,

Daily departing with departing day.

A pea green gamut on a distant plain

Where wily walrusses in congress meet–

Such such is life–

 

(If you’re wondering about the teaser image, go here to view it in its full glory! It’s a lovely limerick Lear wrote and illustrated.)

(Image: “Edward Lear, Limerick 1″ by Edward Lear – Lear, The Book of Nonsense, London New York 1888. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.)