I don't know what it is about human nature, but sometimes the same kind of people whom we can't tolerate in real life—whether freaks or doddering old geeks or lowly gimps in the street—people who just irritate or scare the shit out of us, make very interesting characters when we encounter them in a story—think of the two main characters in "Midnight Cowboy". How attractive would the baseball coach in "Bad News Bears" be in reality? Maybe fiction smoothes the sharp edges of the characters or the sharp aroma of the street stink? Or is it that in real life we don't have the patience to practice "pity" and "insights" that the fictionalized clones are able to elicit from us? Or maybe we're all just better writers than God? That one doesn’t seem likely, though, does it?
"I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died." — Richard Diran
No comments:
Post a Comment
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! (At least put on your socks and pants.)