The Curious Case of Writing Fiction
2 Feb 2024
Currently, I’m reading “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri, and I’m quite liking the book. I love the metaphors, similes, emptiness, and the fullness in the sentences — basically, how she progresses the story, giving beautiful descriptions of everything that’s happening not just between the characters, but also the surroundings and the world we live in. Every paragraph can be dissected and broken down to understand how she came up with it, and it can surely be a masterclass in understanding writing.
It also makes me think: how can someone write so well, especially fiction? I mean, a string of thoughts has led me to say that there’s actually nothing that’s fiction around us!
Firstly, to create such a beautiful narration — a story, characters, and a new world all woven in 300 pages — is not an easy task. Creating such a thing out of thin air, at least in this case, is something that’s hard to believe. For me, a good writer tends to think deeply and see what others haven’t done, giving meanings to their surroundings that others can’t. They can also perceive the emptiness in the world and compare it with something amazing that’s out of the blue, which will make you go crazy.
Look at this excerpt from the book:
She passes over two pages filled only with the addresses of her daughter, and then her son. She has given birth to vagabonds. She is the keeper of all these names and numbers now, numbers she once knew by heart, numbers and addresses her children no longer remember. She thinks of all the dark, hot apartments Gogol has inhabited over the years, beginning with his first dorm room in New Haven, and now the apartment in Manhattan with the peeling radiator and cracks in the walls. Sonia has done the same as her brother, a new room every year ever since she was eighteen, new roommates Ashima must keep track of when she calls. She thinks of her husband’s apartment in Cleveland, which she had helped him settle into one weekend when she visited. She’d bought him inexpensive pots and plates, the kind she used back in Cambridge, as opposed to the gleaming ones from Williams-Sonoma her children buy for her these days as gifts. Sheets and towels, some sheer curtains for the windows, a big sack of rice. In her own life Ashima has lived in only five houses: her parents’ flat in Calcutta, her in-laws’ house for one month, the house they rented in Cambridge, living below the Montgomerys, the faculty apartment on campus, and, lastly, the one they own now. One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.
How incredible is this! Comparing the number of places where one has stayed with five fingers and a fist! Totally worth rereading and rereading.
There’s a love story brewing in the book, and the description of it is so amazingly written, with so much detail that it’s absolutely impossible for me to believe that someone wrote this purely based on their thoughts. Surely, it is a deeply personal story or the writer must have witnessed it very closely, so much so that it affected her life, giving her both pain and happiness.
This morning, I woke up naturally at 7:30 AM, and my sleep wasn’t complete. I called up a friend, and half-heartedly, we both decided to meet somewhere and indulge in something we really like. But at this hour, we both kind of knew it wasn’t worth the effort. It would have a great dopamine release, but again, it’s 7:30 AM in the morning, and we also gotta work for the rest of the day. I started to get ready, and by the time I am in the toilet, my entire motivation to step out of home was flushed.
I decided to take a bath after that. I really love to spend my time bathing; it’s like a whole grand coronation ceremony for me, and I take my time with myself over there because when working remotely and having to stay at home for the day, it makes you find greatness in these apparently ‘small’ things in life.
During my bath, I was wondering how ‘The Namesake’ was written (also what gave birth to this piece), and parallelly, it made me think of someone. I had seen her yesterday, but we didn’t quite get a chance to speak. But the very small interaction we had yesterday and the few hours we’ve spent in the past are enough for me to actually write something about her (talk about having a muse :p or in this case, she became a muse, she didn’t start with being one)!
Now, the stuff that I planned to write on her includes:
- Spending time the way we were born on this planet (unless people from outside of Earth are reading this, in that case kindly let me know)
- Some squeaky noises
- Satisfying curiosities with the eyes
- Shrewsbury biscuits and Aflatoon
- A supermodel, fairness
- Fair skin and softness
- Something that stands on four legs
- Lots of shy laughter
- A village in Madhya Pradesh
- The phrase ‘kaun hai?’
- July 2023
- A journey from innocent shyness to brashness
- Oxytocin and separation
I can totally write a descriptive piece (& I will) that will be quite similar to the book I’m reading right now and imitate Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing style and call it as fiction! But that’s real! It’s literally my firsthand experience — I exist, the muse exists, what happened is something that occurred in real life, including the biscuits, the sweets and the transition of someone who was shy to now someone who is now a little too direct!
Let’s consider the very first writing that was termed ‘fiction’ — surely that must have been penned after someone experienced something, right? Or a series of events must have unfolded in someone’s life, prompting them to engage in the lonely act of writing it down (for themselves first, and then for others).
Let’s also take the experience of a child who hardly knows anything about the world, yet writes fiction. Wouldn’t that be based on something they must have experienced directly or indirectly first-hand?
So, is fiction truly fiction?
Am I wrong in my thoughts and thinking somewhere wrong? Let me know! As I was writing this, I also realized folks like George R. R. Martin might just spend empty hours thinking about the worlds they have created, and that’s one possible way of creating fiction writing. Maybe I haven’t read enough fiction and fantasy. But again, surely there’s something that must have happened in real life to someone, and they have experienced something in their lives that inspired their ‘fictional’ work.
Big thanks to my friend who I allowed to choose my next read at a recent library visit. The Namesake has turned out to be a great read!
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