I liked something of each, but a bit at the end about Anthony Esolen (English prof at Providence College) was amusing.
In what is one of the most charming passages of the book, Esolen reflects on a series of Winslow Homer paintings portraying scenes in the everyday lives of children: away from adults, they are immersed in the natural world, and they are together, face to face. “When children come together to play, we see in miniature the very art of culture itself.”When children came together when I was a child it was usually to argue about the rules of games and beat the crap out of each other. This is similar to the fallacy that Philip Yancey was guilty of (I think in What's So Amazing About Grace) when he put Jean Valjean forward as evidence that people really do go through radical transformation if we radically forgive. Ah, Phil? That's fiction. The author can make the characters do whatever he wants. It doesn't have to have the least relationship to reality. Just plausibility. To some.
Winslow Homer chose what he painted.
But, but, but...they SEEM so REAL and true to life (as I imagine it)!
ReplyDeleteThere don't seem to be very many organizations in between family and state to which we owe much loyalty, or which owe loyalty to us, do there? Your employer--perhaps. Your church--though people skip around pretty freely. Guild? Extended family? Town? State? My alma mater beats the drum pretty regularly, but that's pretty one-sided (please give). For most of us there are few buffers between us and the almighty state.
ReplyDeleteHi AVI. It's been a long time. Very interesting blog.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem with fictional approaches to reality is not per se that they are fiction but that some fiction uses more discernment than other fiction. I do believe that the best fiction contains elements of truth that are invaluable to human experience. Another problem, of course, occurs when readers try to oversimplify the lessons of a great work of fiction. I'm not sure Les Miserables is great fiction. In some ways, it strikes me as the kind of literature with a simple social justice message that many progressives are so fond of these days. In my book (no pun intended), it certainly wouldn't be great literature if it could all be boiled down to the ability of a human to radically transform himself. In contrast, the power of Hamlet, for example, is in the complexity of the character and the story. There are many truths to consider in Hamlet and no neat little moral to tie them all together.
Thanks for the reference to the article. The books reviewed look like they offer some great food for thought.
Kevin, I think that's about right. Fiction can distill truth, but it shouldn't be assumed that all fiction is distilled truth.
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