Sunday, October 02, 2005

 

Section 1: Author's Note

1.)
We learn from this Note that writing fiction isn't just a sit-down-and-write sort of thing. It requires work, dedication, research, a spark of inspiration, and especially, an opening of ourselves so we may place our emotions in our story, in turn lending ourselves and our thoughts to our readers in a very real, and personal way.

-Even the best of authors will have struggles and can have an ineffective piece of work
-Fiction builds itself around our deepest feelings and experiences

2.)
I believe that God can move people to believe in Him in any number of ways, including this story. Often, literature is one of the most effective mediums through which you can cause someone to believe in something (whether you believe it or not)

I think that the author, Yann Martel, will relate so closely to the reader that they are open to listen to just about anything the author has to say. Once this point has been reached, I believe the author will tell such miraculous tale about Pi's dealings with God that it will be nearly impossible for the reader to disagree.

3.)
a-
I agree that fiction is a selective transformation of reality. Who would read a story that is not realistic in any way? Not the characters, not the laws of life or the universe, not the setting. Nobody would read such a story. Most fiction is merely a twisting of reality in order to relate truths to the reader in a way that will appeal to him/her. How do you tell a physicist a truth about athletics? You take the essential parts of the story of the athlete and place them into a new story about a physicist who had to run around in order to find out the Grand Formula (or some such thing). Then, and only then, will you really have the physicist’s attention.

b-
Artists of all sorts are effective and essential psychologists. They are not removed from the problems and realities of life, but can put these truths into a meal that is appetizing to a certain group (visual artists paint or draw pictures, authors write stories, poets write poetry, while musicians write and play music and lyricists apply poetry to music, etc)

The average person has difficulty putting their deepest thoughts and feelings into something they can grasp. That is where artists come in; they take roaming thoughts and feelings and chew them, and chew them, and chew them... and finally give them to others in a more digestible form.

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