Truth in fiction

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal includes an interesting article by Alexander McCall Smith on the relationship between readers of books and the characters in the books. Readers know that “it’s just a story,” but they still care about the characters as people, and want them to have the opportunities they should. On the other hand, fictional wrongdoers had better get what’s coming to them, at least most of the time.

I remember crying at the end of a book I read as a girl, when the book ended with a death. It was the death of an animal, not a human, but that animal had played a major role in the story and it hurt to see him die. I have often spent time, after reading a well-written book, trying to imagine the next events in the lives of the characters. I don’t recall objecting to the way an  author has portrayed a particular character, but I am sometimes bothered that a particular issue is not resolved for a character by the end of the book.

I have long hoped to write a novel myself someday. I don’t know if it will ever happen, and one reason is that I don’t know that I have the ability to create believable characters. On the one hand, characters need to be reasonably consistent, to act “in character.” But real-life humans don’t always act consistently. A mild-mannered person may lose his temper if there is sufficient provocation, and an honest person may cheat if the temptation is great. And a mostly cold, unfeeling person may show signs of tenderness in certain circumstances.

But coming up with that believable mix of traits, virtues, and vices is something that requires a deep understanding of human nature. Not to mention a keen sense of observation of people’s mannerisms, modes of speech, etc. As often as I’m surprised by the things real people around me do and say sometimes, I must not have them figured out very well.

The wisdom of E. B. White

I never knew until today that E. B. White was a writer of anything but children’s books. I read Stuart Little when I was a child (and found it rather boring), I read The Trumpet of the Swan probably shortly after it was published in 1970 (and found it reasonably enjoyable but never reread it that I can remember), and I have read Charlotte’s Web and enjoyed it numerous times, including once just a couple years ago.

So I was surprised, today, reading wikiquote’s quote of the day, to read several suggested quotes (today being E.B. White’s birthday) that revealed a writer of much more than children’s literature. According to infoplease.com (where I first discovered that he had been born July 11, 1899 but thought little of it), White was “a witty, satiric observer of contemporary society,” a writer for the New Yorker magazine, and ”a superb literary stylist,” who also wrote “much light, graceful, and humorous verse.”

I enjoyed looking up more E. B. White quotations on various internet sites. I haven’t yet worked on finding his humorous verse, but it sounds worth looking for. Here are some of the quotes I liked best. My favorite is the first one, about humor (something I had heard before, but had not remembered who said it). I found two forms of this quote, probably because it was so good he said it more than once, in slightly different words – I list the one that is most commonly quoted and I think sounds the best.

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

 

Blogging and spiritual disciplines

Surfing the web this morning, I came across a blog called The Spyglass, where Rob asks “In what ways can you use blogging as a spiritual discipline?” As I was already thinking about blogging and at least one particular spiritual discipline (which is how The Spyglass popped up in my search results), I decided it was a good question to spend some time thinking about.

I don’t think I could quite say I see blogging as a spiritual discipline, but it certainly offers opportunities to practice certain spiritual disciplines – and opportunities of temptation that must be avoided lest I neglect other spiritual disciplines. I can think of more ways to answer this question than I have time to write up tonight – and one tempation I need to avoid is staying up too late blogging, neglecting sleep, time with my sons, and time with God.

Learning from a garden

This morning in the middle of church, my 8-year-old leaned over and asked me, “Do you think my garden is OK?” I was taken aback by this question, as the garden had been covered by snow most of the winter, and it hadn’t occurred to me that he hadn’t realized that it had long been dead. I gently explained this, and assured him we would be able to plant it again in a couple months.

I have to admit I had given little thought to his garden once fall came and it had failed to produce any zucchini, let alone the excess to push on neighbors and friends that I associate with that particular garden vegetable. The marigolds planted as rabbit repellent bloomed just fine, but I wasn’t about to try eating them. And the one carrot I tried, a midget of a dwarf carrot at about one inch long, was so bitter I couldn’t finish even that tiny morsel. I was quite ready to forget about the plot behind the garage until warm weather returned.

Gender Genie is not a genius

Someone on another blog provided a link to a website called Gender Genie, which claims to be able to analyze a piece of writing (preferably of at least 500 words) and determine – with some degree of accuracy, anyway – whether the writer is male or female. Ever the skeptic, I tried a few of my longer blog entries to test it out.

Posts “25 years ago today,” “Ashura in Karbala,” and “Calendar confusion” were deemed to have been written by a man. Only “Reading: The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School” was identified as having been written by a woman. In case you haven’t picked up on my gender from my name (from my occasional comments as well as the url of my blog) or my occasional references to my husband, I am in fact a woman.