On fiction

Tom Wolfe said, “The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That’s not true with non-fiction”.

Undeniably true, but easier said than done, as I realized when I recently tried my hand at fiction. After years of expressing my opinions (sometimes too strongly, I’m told) – verbally, on social networking websites, and now on my blog – I decided to experiment. And it was so hard!

I had the basic plot outline, I had the characters, I even had the structure in place before I put finger to keyboard. Then why was it so difficult? The answer, I realized, was in the voice. Whenever I’ve critically analyzed a book (which means whenever I’ve read a book), I’ve always asked myself: Is there even one character in this book whom I love and root for? If not, the book has failed. This question is so much a part of my book-reading that I’m surprised that as a writer, it took me such a long while to realize it.

Writing an article, an opinion piece, or a blog post is so much easier, in some ways, because you’re writing as yourself, so you’re free to just write what you think. You don’t have to worry that you’re imposing your own views on your characters, because the only narrative voice that counts is your own. You’re not worried that you won’t sound authentic – there’s no way you can’t.

The other thing about writing fiction is that you’re always worried someone else got there before you, and your idea that sounded so cool and interesting when you first came up with it suddenly sounds banal and clichéd. I had to constantly remind myself that no story is entirely original now, in this age of instant communication and sharing of ideas. Everything has been written about in some way, everything is based on something that someone has read, seen, or heard. Every story spawns a million more, each with their own twists and takes, but with the same genesis – human nature. That is the great mother of all stories and everything else comes from it.

This brings me to another question – what is the point of fiction, if every story has been told in some form or another? Of late, I’ve had conversations with so many people who claim that they’re done with fiction. They’ve read their fill, they enjoyed it when they were younger, and now have nothing left to gain from it, so now they will only read non-fiction or, at most, historical fiction. As a nut for good fiction of almost any genre, I find this view hard to understand. How can anyone possibly say they’ve learnt whatever there is to learn from other people’s stories? That’s as good as saying they don’t want to meet anyone new or hear anything about anyone they don’t already know about! It’s a narrow, almost arrogant view – to think you’ve read enough. No one can ever have read enough, and this is one of the best and worst things about life.

Fiction is about more than just the plot. It is beyond someone’s telling of someone else’s story. It’s about imagination, the creation of a brand new world, the ability to get into the skin of characters who don’t exist, and to do it so convincingly that the reader believes these places and people and events to be real, even if just for a few hours. It’s about using these worlds and people and events to illustrate a larger point about the world we actually do inhabit and the lives we actually do live. It’s about creating these parallels and ideas for yourself even if the writer hasn’t illustrated them, because when you read fiction, it becomes your own. It’s about the beauty of a well-crafted sentence or passage, the sudden jolt you feel when one stunningly spare bit of prose leaps out at you and you realize this is exactly how you feel and you thought no one got it. These things – imagination, literary craft, beauty, talent, emotional connection – are limitless. And so, therefore, is fiction.

The Artist: A very special film

In all the pre- and post-Oscar hype surrounding Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, I never once heard anyone talk about the story. It was spoken about more for being a black-and-white, mostly silent film about films than for any other merit. I’ve read reams about how it didn’t deserve the Best Picture, Best Director, or Best Actor Oscars; how it only won because it’s a silent black-and-white movie by a French director with a French actor or because it’s a movie about movies; and how George Clooney in The Descendants was unfairly done out of an award that should have been his. I haven’t seen all the other Oscar nominated movies, but I have seen The Descendants (twice) and can safely say that in my humble opinion, Clooney was only very good. In The Artist, however, Jean Dujardin delivers a performance that transcends time and sense.

The story revolves around George Valentin (Dujardin), the star of the silent era, who refuses to accept that the talkies are here to stay. Arrogant and unable to envision a future in which just seeing him is not enough for the audience, he leaves Kinograph Studios, the production house that has churned out his hits in the past, and decides to make his own films. Kinograph has signed on a slew of newcomers who have no objection to the talkies. One of these is Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who has so far been an extra in some of Valentin’s films, and has always had a bit of a crush on him. Predictably, Valentin’s film bombs while Miller’s is a smash hit, and she herself is the toast of the town. Meanwhile, Valentin is reduced to auctioning off his belongings to make ends meet. His wife, having tried to explain to him how unhappy she is in their marriage, finally leaves him. In his depression and fragile state of mind, the only people Valentin can depend on are Miller and his old assistant (who now works for Miller after Valentin let him go because he couldn’t pay him).

Is The Artist a great, epic story? No. It’s a simple story that follows a fairly predictable path, with even a cute puppy thrown in to take the action forward. Is the torment of silent film actors portrayed in a way that makes you weep for them? No, in fact, the overall tone of the film is light and humorous. Is the movie, then, a worthy winner of all the awards it has scooped in the last few months? I can’t answer that without having seen all the other movies that have been released in the last year, and frankly, I don’t think anyone can. But despite all of this, it is a truly special film that comes along once in a lifetime today. The treatment is so beautiful that every scene, every frame brims over with detail that you’d be hard-pressed to miss, given the lack of distracting speech. The lightness of tone is, in my view, a major winning point for the film because The Artist is, after all, a fond, nostalgic look at a bygone era of typically comic films. The acting is top-notch, with both Dujardin and Bejo inspiring affection, laughter, and a desire to dance in the audience.

Even if critics and juries were a tiny bit partial to it for being a mostly silent black-and-white movie, is that so wrong? Movies and movie-makers win awards for so many different reasons – some for highlighting social issues, some for being humongous hits at the box office, some for daring to do something different. The Artist may not be an amazing story, but it is a work of art that is rare for today’s cinema. And no one can doubt the sheer courage it must have taken to create it. Isn’t that in itself worth awarding?