All Stories Matter: Acknowledging Fiction as Reality

Our fiction is reality. If we are the sum of those we have walked with, our creative expressions like fiction are also compilations of those sensory experiences. The fiction which escapes through our fingers onto a screen or as entertainment in a rum shop is someone’s reality.

Fiction is often positioned as the opposite of reality. It is offered as an escape from, an expression which shapes, and as a representation of reality.

There is tremendous appreciation for the imagery and metaphors in the work of Caribbean authors like Earl Lovelace in The Dragon Can’t Dance. The dusty barrack yards, potholed roads and festering ravines are elements of someone’s reality on Calvary Hill at any given moment. They are not only based on actual experiences; they are actual descriptions of circumstances and the accompanying emotions are quite real.

When deconstructed, we will find that the stories told by authors mostly are autobiographical, at the very least, biographical. They tell their own and other stories sometimes armoured, for ease of candour or preference for privacy. The stories allow presentation without censorship so Uncle Mike who molests his stepdaughter is protected as Uncle John who sexually abuses his daughter. It offers an opportunity for catharsis without ‘givin’ de family bad name’. It allows unpacking of emotions behind literary props as done by V. S. Naipaul in House of Mr. Biswas with his father present as Mohun Biswas.

Someone’s story is always being told. Fiction is an opportunity to show the reality of those who have not or cannot share their reality. These stories are important because they help us to connect across geographical spaces, generations, and cultures.

Whether painful or joyful, there is beauty in immortalising a moment which reminds us of our shared humanity and beauty. The linguistic utterances in Caribbean fiction accurately provide maps of spaces that we have navigated socially, emotionally and physically. In the following excerpt, Michael Anthony provides an account of a pupil who describes an experience of in-class essay writing that many Caribbean students have had. The tidal metaphor describes a scene that those, like me who have spent time in Mayaro, acknowledge fondly. Throughout the book, there are references to places in Rio Claro and Mayaro that I have walked through, and nation language which conveys a rhythm that my ears welcome as my reality.

I went on writing, frantically, as if my thoughts were like the tide, and as if the tide was not just rising, but rushing up. I could not even remember what time I had seen on the clock. My hand was just moving and I was just moving and I was stopping only to turn pages. What I was writing was the living truth. Because I did not have to write it. Only that as long as I did not stop to think or to reason it out, it came flowing out. Good thing composition did not have to be taken for what was really happening! I thought. And good thing Teacher Myra did not know anything of what was happening at home and would say it’s imagination. I rejoiced in this, because when something was on my mind and I took up my pen to write, whatever it was just came spilling out.

– All that Glitters, Michael Anthony

Our stories in fiction are more than representations which elicit sadness or happiness because of empathy for the characters on paper. Seeing fiction as reality should engender understanding of the lives of our fellow men and women beyond the covers of a novel. Social experiences are not only acquired from these stories but relived with treatment of life’s challenges and a shared resolution for readers, writers and their characters. Fiction is reality parading in black and white.

By Denyssa David
Volunteer, TEDxPortofSpain

Photos: A house for Mr. Biswas and All that glitters taken from
http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-32/house-ones-own#axzz4GsfmPKUI
http://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9789766373900-us.jpg