Thursday Thoughts...

"I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves." 

David Foster Wallace

Funnily enough this one resonated today because I had said to B just yesterday - "I know I spend too much time in my head...", when I could have described it as being "marooned in my own skull" which sounds far more dramatic.

I also responded to it because instead of using the default male; he chose to identify the reader as she/her and that is, in its own way, still kind of shocking. Can you believe?

The language he uses is also nice  "giving imaginative access to" is for me, an a great descriptor of what fiction can achieve.  It can spark your imagination. He doesn't over promise that fiction can get you a new life or let you be in another's life in a different way, but he seems to suggest that fiction can unlock a door, or flick a switch, or any of those notions which can then give your imagination access.

One bit I wonder about is his insertion of the word 'serious' before fiction.  I took it out and pondered doesn't all fiction give you imaginative access? Why does it have to be serious? Or perhaps it was the purpose of serious fiction, rather than the purpose of all fiction?

Not the worst place to be marooned... Heron Island, 2013.