Why I Write
It’s because I love lying
“Fiction is the lie that tells the truth.”
I’d be hard pressed to agree more.
Now it seems of late that Neil Gaiman, if not actually claiming credit for this quote is often, and unjustly, given it — especially by Mr. Google. Me, I’d rather credit Albert Camus, who (before Neil Gaiman was even a twinkle in papa David’s eye) did in fact say, “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Counterintuitive, some say.
Brilliantly put, say others.
Amazingly true, says I.
Yes, we have a lot of nouns and adjectives in the English language, and many of them come with very detailed definitions of many kinds, but such stand-alone words will never carry the same significance and meaning that thoughts and actions over a span of a story carry and convey.
By the end of “Great Expectations” you know Pip. No psychologist or historian could ever sum him up in a paragraph of well-chosen adjectives or inventive metaphorical nouns. Never. It takes the story to birth and spring to full life our hero (of sorts) Pip.
David Faulkner once said, “Your character should breathe, stand up, and cast a shadow.” By the end of Dicken’s lovely tale, Pip casts very long, and very real shadows indeed.
According to Arundhati Roy the writer of stories or tales is the midwife of understanding. And then she goes on to sing their praises, “Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world.” Who can possibly argue with that?
Flannery O’Connor puts it another way: “In fiction, two and two is always more than four.” And that I think tells the full story, how to make words mean more than words. Her way of saying that telling a living truth takes a well-crafted, though equally alive, lie.
That is why I love lying.
© Wolfstuff
