About “living” in a fictional world

What I really love about writing this blog – among a few other things! – is how it makes me discover what I already know. Of course I already knew this, but it took me two chapters of writing and thinking about fictional worlds to discover WHEN EXACTLY “there is” a fictional world for me. When exactly my reading of fiction evolves into a fictional world.

At the end of my last blog I was about to rule out “Vanity Fair” as a fictional world. It was not because, similar to “Shakespeare”, there isn’t really a “world”. In the same way the vortex movement of the language, which permeates everything, creates a singular world practically from the moment I am reading the first sentence, the totally special way of looking at people “through” the irony, that permeates everything, instantly creates this singular world called “Vanity Fair”. And there is even this unusual awareness to be found in the narrator that his narration is creating a world, and where exactly this world begins and ends. To the point of even referring sometimes to things that would come into the story IF they didn’t surpass the realm of “Vanity Fair. So, as in “Shakespeare”, there is this extremely strong “vortex” at work, the dynamic structure, creating a self-contained universe.

I realized that I had already ruled out the “Spooks” as a fictional world, even though I have probably spent months of my life “in” this universe, because the series lacks this kind of structure. And I know that this is the reason that nothing “happened” WITH ME when I was watching, even though I became kind of addicted to it for a time. I probably just loved all these great actors (inter)acting in this crazy environment. And enigmatic characters always hold my attention – as long as they stay enigmatic. That was probably the reason why I liked Ros Myers. When the veil is finally lifted there might actually be “nothing”? Yes, there was even a lot of horrible “truth” to be disclosed, like in “Shakespeare”, which I loved, but it wasn’t the same kind of experience. Most of the time I was “just” watching. In this respect “Vanity Fair” was totally different even though it probably didn’t create a (permanent) world for me. But there was definitely something happening.

At the beginning, it was just laughing. Not derision, mind, I think I was laughing with pleasure about what I found there. And it must have been something I was looking for, some kind of opportunity to do what I wanted to do. So, the laughing had to be about something “serious”. And I certainly approve very strongly of the notion of a moralist which Thackerey “supports” in this novel. Even though I am probably acting rather “irresponsible” within my fictional worlds, compared to real life, morality, understood in the right way, appears to be a crucial issue for me. One of the most fascinating issues concerning the “Sagas of the Icelanders” always was to observe people trying to uphold certain moral standards quite outside of our well-known moral system based on Christianity. It is about which moral values are really important and prevent their world from sliding into chaos and utter destruction. (Which is, by the way, a BIG issue in “Shakespeare” as well …) It is also a key issue in the “Making of England” series where there is this clash between a heathen and Christian moral system, heathen being often equated with “immoral” in our age but, of course, it isn’t. It is just that the “heathens” were much more practical about moral values – which I would recommend strongly in some cases to improve our implementation of moral values. To stubbornly uphold moral values that are impossible to establish is rather a way of questioning their right to exist. And I think that “Vanity Fair” is a world which actively displays a structure to implement morality in people. Because, even though Thackerey makes fun of moralists in the most thorough way imaginable, he is of course himself a moralist. Thinking about it, to implement moral values in people outside of a religious context appears to me to be one of the most important reasons for creating fictional worlds in this early age of great English novelists. It is all about this parallel structure which makes us SEE things. But Thackerey is a very “advanced” moralist, probably even reformed his “trade” to the finest and most advanced it can be. And of course I am very pleased to see that it works on myself, as a child of the twentieth century, probably differently, but as strongly as it might have worked on his contemporary readers. At least for me there is no doubt that the part of the world that comes into “Vanity Fair” is a fundamentally immoral world. Not because it is devoid of moral values – or a world where moral values as such are systematically questioned and weakened to set something else free, as in “Hannibal” – but because people are completely and fundamentally ignorant and deceitful about themselves. This structure displays, in my opinion, exactly why moral values don’t have the slightest chance to be implemented within “Vanity Fair” – the one of the twenty-first century no less than the one of the eighteenth. And the key structure to make this work is to prove it on characters that are “real” people – not kind of “social types” to embody good features or vices. Because this makes it kind of tragic, and makes it genuinely work, making “us” understand what an ugly world “Vanity Fair” really is. I understand ALL OF THEM, as to who they are, what their predicaments are and where they come from, and in which way exactly they are “trapped” in this world. Even such horrible pricks as father and son Osborne, for example. They are truly “human” nonetheless, and if proof was needed for what I just wrote I could refer to the great BBC adaptation from 1998. Because this is what great British actors do best: examine these characters as to their humanity, find out exactly what these people are made of, and play it in a way which couldn’t be more convincing. And, by “being right” about every single character, the series turns out to be as great as the book, with the additional treat of seeing beautiful acting. But in this case I enjoyed reading the book - being more of an explorer myself in this world - slightly more.

So, unlike the “Spooks”, “Vanity Fair” contains this dynamic structure which corresponds with something “within” me and might create something lasting. Maybe it is not much: just making me feel better about the decision to live permanently outside this world of double standards and deceit. Which certainly isn’t a big thing for me because I am not good enough at any of these “accomplishments” to thrive in it. Certainly, the only person the narrator doesn’t ridicule in any way is Becky Sharp, and “we” are probably travelling with her while travelling in this world. But, honestly: who wants to “be” her?

But, even though the “serial” structure as such is not enough for me to create a fictional world, it is unlikely for a single novel – or play – to achieve that. If only because of the fact that I can stay in this world only when I am reading. Whereas the world of a series is extended automatically beyond the current episode because of my looking forward to the next episode, and the second series, and so on. When I made an inventory of my fictional worlds I forgot “Austen” – probably because this world is currently “inactive”. But it certainly still resides somewhere within me as a store of language, and structures, and pleasures. As there is a whole string of novels, not only one, and, not least, a lot of great adaptations by the BBC, the process of reading can be extended almost indefinitely, and, in a way, is still going on. I am still looking forward to anything new in this field, and will certainly read the novel again, if there is a new screen version of any kind, and probably be surprised … 

So, there is of course something that makes series the ideal candidates for fictional worlds, and a big part of my fictional worlds – temporary or permanent – are series, like “House of Cards” or “Hannibal”. The obvious reason is that it is easy to “stay” in them. I just have to watch. Nonetheless most series, like the “Spooks”, though I have spent a lot of time in it, didn’t become “worlds” because they are structurally weak. Whereas “House of Cards”, for example, certainly is a ”model” series but is structurally very strong already on the level of plot. This is usually a weak point of all series – except those that are adaptations of books, of course. And, in a way, “House of Cards” is, though there is no novel or book series behind it but some kind of pattern which is, I think, ultimately derived from Shakespeare as this kind of “wheel of fortune” or “rise and fall” plot. Interestingly, this is just what I EXPECT - and did, from the beginning - not having seen the fourth series yet. And I just realized why I am rather pleased instead of disappointed when a series comes to an end. It is because I put structure first. It is mostly structure that makes a text special and satisfactory, and “strong” enough to interact with me in a “serious” way.

So, series often make me feel as if I was in a fictional world, watching them, because I am spending so much of my time “in” them. But quite often I am “just” spending time, being rather passive, sometimes even wasting time, as I am not really watching, letting my thoughts wander instead. A lot of it might be more about how much I like to be in a fictional world, giving me the illusion that I am. But the totally different way watching some of them makes me feel is proof that there is a fictional world “at work”. And when that happens – that I have this exciting feeling of been drawn into it, feeling the vortex movement of a world being created – I know that I have to FIND A WAY of staying in it. I have to find out where my place in this world is, and how to “fill” this place. And this is the decisive criterion for me that I “am” in a fictional world. In the case of “Shakespeare” it appears as if it was the only world where JUST READING is enough. There is so much to read, and reading Shakespeare in itself is WORK. Of course, the crowning experience is to see productions of the plays, kind of like the reward for all the work. Without it, or without at least imagining them to be performed, there would be no point to the reading. So, there is a different kind of activity involved to “extend” the world beyond the reading. And I think that the simple concept of “work” is a very good one to explain what I mean. I am always so impressed and pleased if I find out HOW MUCH WORK an actor has probably done to create a certain character. And I suppose this is the one thing I really envy them, at least the only one which I can admit to, because envy is something I usually stay clear of. But it can be productive as well, and is, in this case, because it motivates me. It motivates me to think that I can be in this world AS WELL though I have to find my own way of “doing” this.

And, though most of it has to be done through a combination of reading and writing in my case, my ways of staying in different worlds have been very different as well. It usually involves some kind of “stronger” reading. In “Shakespeare” I always start reading aloud, usually when I am reading a play the second time. This has probably brought me back to something I liked a lot when I was an adolescent and had a younger sister I could read to. In the case of the “Making of England” series I re-discovered this as a means to intensify and “slow down” my reading. And it makes me add another dimension to the characters. When I read “Winnetou” to my sister I discovered that I was able to create voices for all these different – mostly male! – characters. In fact, I had to because there is a lot of dialogue in these books without any “he said” and so on in between the respective utterances, so that I had not only to figure out who was speaking but to make clear who was speaking by “doing” different voices. And I usually managed it, which I was proud of. And I am disproportionally proud of being able to do this still. And creating voices for the characters from Cornwell is not just such fun but provides them with an additional dimension which I came to understand better just yesterday when I observed clearly that one of the characters had spoken “himself” instead of me “speaking him”. It really happens when it goes well, when I have actually managed to CREATE characters by creating voices for them. By adding something of my own to Cornwell’s true-to-life personnel I had done something to bring the world to life, and, for me, to be closer, to be more involved in it.  And, of course, reading aloud makes me spend much more time “in” these novels than I would just reading them “in my head”.

So, the most important thing about creating fictional worlds, for me, is how much work I do “in” them, actively re-creating them for myself, kind of putting the world together. Concerning “Middle-earth” it was mostly writing my own “fan fiction”, in a way making sense of the history of the dwarves and their inclination to go on “suicidal” missions. (In fact, there are at least four of them. Besides Thráin’s and Thorin’s rather lunatic expeditions to the Lonely Mountain there is Thrór, entering Khazad-dûm to be killed(!), and Balin, doing the same thing, to be killed as well, although not right away.) Of course I was disproportionally proud of being able to write a hundred pages of fiction in English which I thought to be good writing. I am not so sure of that now, but at least my “mission” was successful. The dwarves and their lunatic pattern of behaviour finally made sense to me, and, together with the films and reading much more of Tolkien than I would have read without this project, it made me spent several years of my life in this world.

But this is still nothing compared to the work I did appropriating the world of the Icelandic sagas. There I practically (re)created the world “behind” the stories from scratch. There might not be many people who wouldn’t see my fan fiction as a lunatic enterprise, but kind of “pasting” together the world behind the sagas through making a file about all the inhabitants of this world, their family trees and stories about them, which is currently over 2000 pages long, over a period of twenty-odd years, certainly beats that. The project is still ongoing, even though I don’t experience much excitement at present, being in that world. But I had so much invested in it, and it would be such a pity to leave it after I finally learned Old Norse to be able to read the original saga texts. This is certainly very complex, but I kind of never really knew why I was doing it until I went to Iceland for the first time, in 2013. Maybe not even until I found “Kötluholt”. Though I was incredibly excited, of course, to see Thingvellir, to see the lava Snorri Godi sparked on, and to discover all the places seen and named for the first time by Skalla-Grim. All this was great beyond imagination, but when “it” finally happened it was quite an inconspicuous moment. I had been persuaded by the literature that the sagas were mainly “fiction”, but assumed that it might be possible to tell which characters had been real people, founded on how firmly they were rooted in this web of a real world which I extricated from the text. This might still be so, and probably is, but a little discovery gave me second thoughts about it. It was about the character of the witch Katla which appeared to me being invented for reasons of plot, the typical scape-goat you can pin the guilt on, so that more important characters might be exonerated. Travelling along the north coast of Snaefellsnes, I was looking into my map and found the place named “Kötluholt” at the exact spot where, according to “Eyrbyggja saga”, Katla’s farmstead was located. And I know this kind of experience is impossible to relate: but I had finally “hit” the “material” deposit of reality on which these stories are based. The moment I had become so excited about them had been when I had “got it” that they were about REAL people. And I had started to look for them, as this window into a past I was interested in but knew I would never have access to, regardless of how much I would read about it. And it appears that, at that moment, I had finally found what I had been looking for all this time, and somehow knew that not a minute of this incredible amount of time I spent “there” had been wasted.

And I really regret that I have to add a paragraph because this last sentence would have been such a great ending for this chapter about “living” in a fictional world. But, reading it again about three weeks after writing it, it has just made me realize completely why this issue of fictional worlds is so important to me. I DID know, of course, from the moment I came upon my second favourite quote by Richard Armitage from an interview about the “Hobbit” films, where he said that what he really wanted from his carrier was the opportunity to “investigate a character like this”. And when I realized: that is EXACTLY it! That is what I had set out to do: INVESTIGATE this world. And that was why it felt important, and why having to leave it for good felt so bad. And when there is pain I tend to examine it to find the cause, maybe to find a cure as well – which I did. – And, even though I didn’t really know that, I have probably always seen reading as “participation” – not as exclusion from somewhere I couldn’t really be because this world doesn’t belong to a “public”- which I might be a part of – but to some inaugurate minority who knows everything about it anyway. And this is exactly the reason why I almost stopped bothering with “serious” literature, using this term as an equivalent of “Ernste Musik” = “serious music” – which actually exists in German! Though I don’t think it is used anymore, having generally given way to the broader term “Klassik”. But Shakespeare or Austen are “classics”, and they are JUST NOT the kind of text which you are not supposed to understand unless you have somehow wormed your way into the author’s brain. I have had a lot of this kind of experience as well, and I think it has been important to understand how far people are able to travel using language as transport. But I have never really been interested in “literature”, which basically means: in authors. I have always mainly been interested in texts, and how they work, and what they do to me and why. And the most compelling thing they can do to me, and, I think, to most people, is to draw me in in that way. And, when I come out again, at least “something” will be different. I don’t come out of that process as the same person. Sometimes this doesn’t last, and then there is probably no permanent world created from this amalgamation of a text and myself. But when this actually happens, when this world is created through reading, there is no experience which I would prefer to it, and I want to repeat it over and over again. Except writing fiction myself, probably, but I might have forgotten by now what this was like.