Segway into Keret (yes, I know how to spell segue)
I did not read Midnight's Children, but I have heard the name Salman Rushdie in our very literary family's discussions. So when I perused the Etgar Keret website--etgarkeret.com--I was excited to find praise of Keret from Rushdie. He is quoted as saying that Keret is "A brillaint writer... completely unlike any writer I know. The voice of the next generation." That is neat. I think that this Keret quote found on his website really sets the stage for his stories. The writer says, "I think that when you write or make films, you try to show how you experience reality. I don't experience it as realism, which is objective, and something people agree on. The moment you accept subjectiveness, it transcends realism--falling in love is flying in the air." I'm not sure I get the whole falling in love part, but I do get Keret's different perceptions of reality. It got me thinking... and I'm not sure if this is in fact a restatement of this quote or in direct contradiction to the quote... but if you transcend reality in a story, as Keret does, then you escape the common, dime-a-dozen pieces, which have been written a million times, and convey similar themes or ideas in a new space, a space which is common to all of its readers. But then wouldn't that make the piece far less objective and far more subjective? So maybe I have that wrong. But for my own fiction I think it would be a fun idea to bring all readers to a common ground or a common reality by establishing a transcended reality in the story. You see?
posted by Caitlin Halla at
8:46 PM
2 Comments:
It's interesting that Rushdie is calling Keret “the voice of the next generation” as Rushdie was trying, actually calling himself, the voice of his own generation.
Rushdie’s character, Saleem Sinai, is the fictional voice of new Indians in the novel Midnight's Children. He was the first child born after Indian independence and had the ability to telepathically communicate with the 500 first born after Brittan’s transfer of power in 1947. The life path of Saleem Sinai is an allegory to the post-colonial history of India. Sinai himself is essentially India itself. He is a leader. He forms The Midnight’s Children Conference with the goal of giving guidance to MCC members. Rushdie gave Sinai the potential to be a great leader even though those that he tried to lead did not feel the same way.
Rushdie also saw himself as the voice of his own "next generation." He was the first to be overly critical of the new governments that followed independence, critical of Indira Gandhi, critical of the Muslim riots, the sterilization of the poor, the partition of Pakistan and the war in Kashmir. His voice against what he disapproved of in his home country was loud. He pushed hard to be heard and was.
If Rushdie calls you the voice of the next generation it's kind of a big deal.
In regard to Keret's quote about transcending reality I think that whenever we tell a story we are always transcending reality and most definitely always being subjective. I don't think that objectivity is ever possible in human reiterations of anything, fiction or fact. We are always subjective, even in journalism, documentary film, photography and non-fiction. If an observation has come through the human mind it has been filtered by that mind, always, in some way. What you choose to present, hold back, emphasize, your word choice, placing and order of information, quotes you choose, etc., etc., etc, it's all choice. You can say you are being objective but any choice is a human choice and are all choices of the individual. Everyone will tell a story differently. The way I witness something will most definitely be different from how a mentally iffy person sees an occurrence, different from the way a rich trust fund child sees it, different from how you see it. We all have different perspectives. That perspective becomes a part of the story when it is retold, both consciously and subconsciously. It is impossible to not include our own perspectives even if we say we are being objective. Not. possible.
So how can we be sure that we get objective portrayals of fact? --- Witness them yourself? Nope, I don't think so. Even the way you witness something first hand, say a murder, a court trial, whatever, your reality is going to be different from my reality, even if we are standing right next to each other.
It's all fiction.
I liked your comments, Caitlin, about Rushdie & Keret's quotes. Falling in love has often been compared with flying both in literary terms and psychological. Will research this further. A certain irritating feline is pestering me at the moment. More later.
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