"Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted."
--Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran,
quoted in David Denby's Lit Up: One Reporter, Three Scools. Twenty-Four Books That Can Change Lives (2016)
I don't agree that "most great works of the imagination" were meant to do to anything. Do you?
When authors set out to disguise instruction as fiction ("to make you feel..."), it doesn't reach the mark of "great works of the imagination". There's a suspicious odor about it, like the grocery bag of donated books with an unplaceable sweet odor that I unpacked the other day .
When I got to the bottom, there was the melty body of a mouse.
George Orwell's novels, for instance, might be great political commentary, but they are not great works of the imagination--you can smell their machinery oil.
And does most great fiction force us (force us?) to question our reality? Often it clearly presents what we knew to be true, but couldn't express.
Anyway, whatever--there is a value to things that shake us out of our mental complacency, and this quote came to me because yesterday at work, two customers asked me when Halloween was.
Not like, "Oh, gee, how many days is it till Halloween?"
No, I mean, they literally didn't know what date the holiday fell on.
Work works like that--it makes me feel like a stranger in my assumptions.
I love that.
You'd think every grown up knows when Halloween is, or that state taxes aren't used to fund war, or that sterling silver shouldn't go in metal recycling.
But no.
Each social group has a community chest containing a general fund of knowledge, and there may be little or no crossover between these GFKs.
My coworkers know lots of things that I don't even know are things to know...
many people think they want to be forced to question their assumptions yet no one wants to join my sidewalk dancing cult.
ReplyDeleteBecause I like to take quizzes, I took one of those general knowledge ones that a friend had posted on FB. My friend had gotten 93% (as in she did better than 93% of the other people who took the quiz). To my surprise the quiz went on and on and on, asking lots of general knowledge questions in a multiple choice format.
ReplyDeleteRight away there was a science question that I just guessed (and of course they never show you the right answers just your end score.) Some of the questions I found so obvious, but others I'm sure I got wrong. I actually think they nailed the variety of questions needed to get at one's fund of general knowledge, and I thought I did ok but didn't think I'd aced the test. I was just hoping I'd do as well as my friend's 93%.
I got 99%. That's not brag...that's to say how shocked I am about other people lack of general cultural knowledge (as you say, they usually know many things/cultures I don't know are even things to know). Still those people (who don't know the dates of Halloween, Christmas, or the 4th of July) are certainly at a big disadvantage in the dominant culture.
(Gol dang! I had to verify about 20 pictures to get this post published!)
Revelations! And then it happens. A first experience. And I think OMG I have to share that. How? So I try to tell folks, most don't understand, unless it has already happened for them too. So I try to disguise the information in fiction. That doesn't work either. Some say my fiction smells like that deceased mouse. For those who have already experienced the same revelation they smile and say, “Yea I know this too...” To those who have not, well that dead mouse can't help how he or she smells at that point in his or her evolution.
ReplyDeleteI truly believe that the reason we are here on this planet is to experience our own personal revelations. I am also slowly learning it is not my obligation to make others experience that which they have not yet come to point of enjoying. And I fully agree, fiction is not the vehicle to do anything like that. But what joy revelations bring and how wonderful to try to share that joy.
None of this has anything to do with religion BTW.
I love your blog, thanks for creating it.
I don't recall if it was the hero swimming around in the ocean or that guy, Sky King, that flew around in the sky solving crimes and making life beautiful and unsullied again. I was a young person. And on every episode he would speak the same line, “...and then I saw it.”
:)
Tom
My question always is "who decides what books that can change lives" or "2019 the 100 best films ever." I have become so wary of ads that tell me I will cry or laugh at movie x or book y and how I have to read/watch such thing as it will make me a better person.
ReplyDeleteI can say that I have yet to read a book that changed my life - ie., made me put it down and say now I can be a better person, etc........ I have read books that made me think/question certain thoughts.
I would agree with the idea of GFKs. I like that term.
Kirsten
SHOELACE ANGELICA: What people (I) say we want, and what we can really tolerate are not always the same, eh?!
ReplyDeleteBINK: Maybe don't hit the "I'm not a robot" option? Just hit "post comment" to avoid the image captcha?
Anyway, yeah, if you don't/can't share the General Fund of Knowledge of the culture you operate in, you're at a disadvantage. And that's a lot of people...
TOM: "And then I saw it...." Yes! Exactly!
And then I want to share it, for sure--it's such a pleasure, as you say.
But how best to share it?
There's the rub.
KIRSTEN: Ooooh---what books would you list that made you question certain thoughts?
I'd love to know.
I want to ponder what books and movies changed my life. Some were obvious--Augustine's Confessions, for instance. Others were subtle---seeing "The Sound of Music" when I was five or six (and then every other year) influenced me deeply I'm sure, ...but how?