Second Unit: Fiction

Dear Students,

If you miss a class, you are still responsible for its contents:

READING A STORY

After the shipwreck that marooned him on his desert island, Robinson Crusoe, in the story by Daniel Defoe , stood gazing over the water where pieces of cargo from his ship were floating by. Along came “two shoes, not mates” It is the qualification not mates that makes the detail memorable. We could well believe that a thing so striking and odd must have been seen , and not invented. But in truth Defoe, like other masters of the art of fiction, had the power to make us believe his imaginings. Borne along with the art of the storyteller, we trust what we are told even though the story may be sheer fantasy.

Fiction (from the latin fictio, “a shaping, a counterfeiting”) is a name for stories not entirely factual, but at least partially shaped, made up, imagined. It is true that in some fiction, such as a historical novel, a writer draws upon factual information in presenting scenes , events and characters. But the factual information in a historical novel, unlike that of a history book, is of secondary importance… In fiction, the “facts” may or may not be true, and a story is none the worse for their being entirely imaginary. We expect from fiction a sense of how people act, not an authentic chronicle o0f how, at some past time, a few people acted.

As children, we used to read (if we were lucky and formed the habit) to steep ourselves in romance, mystery, and adventure. As adults, we still do: at an airport, while waiting for a flight, we pass the time with some newsstand paperback full of fast action and brisk dialogue. Certain fiction, of course, calls for closer attention. To read a novel by the Russian master Dostoevsky instead of a thriller about secret agent James Bond is somewhat like playing chess instead of a game of tic-tac-toe. Not that a great novel does not provide entertainment. In fact, it may offer more deeply satisfying entertainment than a novel of violence and soft-core pornography, in which stick figures connive, go to bed, and kill one another in accord with some market-tested formula. Reading literary fiction (as distinguished from fiction as a commercial product- the formula kind of spy, detective, Western, romance or science fiction story), we are not necessarily led on by the promise of thrills; we do not keep reading mainly to find out what happens next. Indeed, a literary story might even disclose in its opening lines everything that happened, then spend the rest of its length revealing what that happened meant. Reading fiction is no merely passive activity, but one that demands both attention and insight-lending participation. In return, it offers rewards. In some works of literary fiction, we see more deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters than we ever see into those of our family, our close friends, our lovers – or even ourselves.

X.J. Kennedy

Dana Goia

HOMEWORK

Please, look for definitions of these forms of fiction:

Fable

Tale

Fairy tale

Tall tale

Short story

Novella

Novel