What are stories and why do we want them?

[blp]

The question is first of all about all stories, starting with anecdotes we tell people and ending with epic narratives, but it breaks down into littler, interrelated questions. Why do we need to tell anecdotes and why do some people feel the need to write longer narratives? Why do we read them? Why are we interested in narratives we know not to be true? Part of the answer to this, one that seems to me to throw up more questions, is something about an element of surprise. Things happen that we don't expect or don't happen when we expect them to. To some extent, a narrative seems to supply more satisfaction by not giving us what we expect and, perhaps in some cases, not giving us what we want.

[Sami]

I think there’s probably a difference between telling stories and reading them – spoken and written narratives could also throw up different reasons as well. (Is there a technical difference between a narrative and a story, or are they the same thing?).

A friend of mine likes to annoy me by claiming that there’s no point to reading fiction since only non-fiction has something to teach you, whereas fiction “just tells a story”. I don’t agree with him at all, but I am not so sure if the interest in reading stories always comes from being surprised or from finding something unexpected.

For instance, would this mean that re-reading stories is always unattractive? I recently re-read “nineteen eighty-four” for the first time in many years, and didn’t enjoy it less because I already knew how the events would unfold. In fact, I think Orwell says something about the enjoyment of reading being in finding something familiar, unsurprising, or expected. When Winston reads Goldstein’s book, part of the attraction is that it doesn’t tell him anything that he didn’t already know.

[blp]

Definitely, Sami. But there are different ways in which that operates. That experience of something already known could be escapism or it could feel like a necessary reminder of something that matters to us, but we've let slip. That could operate in other kinds of artworks too. Specifically, other kinds of writing, such as philosophy, political theory or religious texts might do this for us. When I talk about something not previously known and perhaps not desired by a reader or listener, I'm talking specifically about the unfolding of a narrative, a description of events. I realise this is not the only pleasure of a work of fiction and I take your point about re-reading, but I'm trying to get at what the specific attraction of a narrative is.

[chmpman]

An attraction, one might say, of a narrative is it gives us insight into the actions and thoughts of characters other than ourselves. It allows us to essentially commit an out of body experience and see, if written well, into the soul of another individual. This tendency of sympathetic displacement is important to the evolution of modern man throughout the ages and in my opinion is the dominant factor in man's evolution so far.

[A Hard Rain]

at its basest, the story is the most accessible, applicable, understandable explanation of our existence. the story is intertwined through time just as our lives are. i think the basis of the reason we read stories is fear. we want the absolute, the universal, we fear the lack of these things. sure, the story relates you to your fellow man, or another 'soul', but it's more then that. communication, at it's basest is the transfer of one approximated concept to another, and it is in that transfer that we feel we can actually 'know' something. and to a certain extent we can. and it is in that feeling of knowing something that we relate with one another, feeling less alone, for if we could not make this transfer, then ultimately we would have to assume that nothing is ultimately knowable. And maybe that is still true, yet, the close approximation is of the highest value.

[bluevictim]

This is an interesting question. Perhaps the pleasure we get from stories has to do with a fundamental need/desire to empathize. I think there are even some recent experiments about how humans are somehow hardwired for empathy.

[Virgil]

Very interesting question. Probably a multiplicity of reasons, many of which have already been mentioned. There are probably distinctions in the motives between the verbal story and the written story. I'm not sure I can identify them now. But on top of what has already been said two more: (1) for entertainment, (2) to make the listner/reader see what the teller of the tale sees.

[blp]

Empathy, or, anyway, some identification with characters does seem to play a part, but I think it's possible, albeit unusual, to enjoy a story without it. I don't find much to identify with in 'Lolita', but I love the book.

A multiplicity of reasons, Virgil. Yes, at a glance, it's looking that way to me too, which I already find an odd result. Not sure I can say why I find it so odd.

To make the listener see...etc. Probably, but plenty of writers say they find out what they're writing by writing it, which suggests they didn't start from the motivation of knowing what it was they wanted to make anyone else see.

The entertainment part especially interests me as being hard to quantify. What is this process of being entertained by a story? What's happening to us when we're being entertained by a story?

[blp]

at its basest, the story is the most accessible, applicable, understandable explanation of our existence. the story is intertwined through time just as our lives are. i think the basis of the reason we read stories is fear. we want the absolute, the universal, we fear the lack of these things. sure, the story relates you to your fellow man, or another 'soul', but it's more then that. communication, at it's basest is the transfer of one approximated concept to another, and it is in that transfer that we feel we can actually 'know' something. and to a certain extent we can. and it is in that feeling of knowing something that we relate with one another, feeling less alone, for if we could not make this transfer, then ultimately we would have to assume that nothing is ultimately knowable. And maybe that is still true, yet, the close approximation is of the highest value.

This idea of stories and fear looks promising. Potentially, it squares the circle between escapist fictions and those that, for whatever reason, are harder to swallow. The former reassure us, however spuriously (the good guys win and get the love and we are the good guys) and the latter, to generalise horribly, help think about difficulty and complexity - in theory.

The element of time also seems key. There's something comforting, for me at least, about watching events unfold - rather like seeing a road unwind ahead of you while sitting passively in the passenger seat of a car. Still, events unfold around us all the time. I wonder why we also want simulations of this process.

[The Unnamable]

All stories imply an audience. “We crave a witness, even fiercely judgemental, to our small dirt.”

As the original thread on which this was posted has been locked, this one gives me a good opportunity to post it again.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/stonemewhatalife/pic.jpg

[beer good]

It's a good question, one I've been mulling over for some time without really reaching an answer... It's part of the reason I love metafiction, writers examining the art of storytelling itself and why it's necessary.

I recently read two novels which deal a lot with storytelling as an end in itself; Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping and Torgny Lindgren's Hash, both very highly recommended (though I don't know how good the English translation of the latter is). Lindgren ends on a note that looks like a pun, but after reading the book it sounds really profound; that the Swedish word for "sentence" and "sense" is the same. We tell stories - put words in a certain order - to make sense of the world.

In one way, I agree with what A Hard Rain (great screen name, BTW) wrote above:

at its basest, the story is the most accessible, applicable, understandable explanation of our existence. the story is intertwined through time just as our lives are. i think the basis of the reason we read stories is fear. we want the absolute, the universal, we fear the lack of these things.
However, I don't think it's always necessarily a case of wanting something absolute or simple: we want to make sense, and that doesn't necessarily mean simple. Someone (Unnamable?) said recently that man isn't a rational being, but a rationalizing one. A good story, whether fictional or factual, can help us make sense of a complex world without over-simplifying - give us different perspectives on life. Understand how we and others work; "Lolita" would be a great example, actually; not because you sympathize with Humbert, but rather because you get an angle on how he thinks - instead of just making him a monster, you have a human being. Storytelling allows us the antithesis of mathematical measurement, the antidote to digital 1s and 0s, the grays between black and white. Much like dreams are supposed to be our subconscious trying to piece together what we've experienced during a day, storytelling is a half-conscious attempt to organize our own and others' experiences. Poetic lie-sense.

And so on. Man, I need coffee.

[The Unnamable]

blp, if you haven’t read Graham Swift’s Waterland, I think you’d love it. The book is great and the film version pretty bad but it does have some good moments.

The main character, a History teacher called Tom Crick, explains to his students why he has been telling them stories in his History classes. In the film version, he relates a time when he’d seen footage of the bombing of a German city during WWII (possibly Dresden, can’t remember). He tells them about the lumps of ripped and torn meat he witnessed. This, in essence, is what we are. But we think, feel, love, cherish, laugh and so on. He saw the need for stories in those chunks of flesh. He didn’t get an answer from any organised religion but from the ordering narrative of stories. Those people lying in lumps on the ground had to matter or we are just meat. From a scientific point of view, we are merely temporary chemical homes for genes. Ensuring that this is only part of the story is the task of Literature, Music, The Arts, etc.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I would like to approach this question from the point of view of the teller of the story. Why do we feel the need to tell stories? Is this related to why we like to hear/read them?

I think that one consequence of man's intelligence is that he feels isolated emotionally. We can never know what another person is actually thinking or feeling; Our languages cannot express everything that we feel accurately and unambiguously; misunderstandings and arguments arise as a result of this. In an attempt to circumvent the imperfect interface between ourselves and others, we make up stories to illustrate the way we feel.

I think that all art is similar in this respect; an attempt to communicate emotion. I'll go further; a need to communicate emotion.

And of course, there is a similar, equal and opposite, urge to comprehend the emotions of others. That is why we read/listen to the stories; why we watch films and listen to music.

Essentially, we are trying to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'them'.

That's my thoughts on the matter anyway.

[The Unnamable]

Essentially, we are trying to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'them'.
I want a much wider gap.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I want a much wider gap.

So in your case, the story would just be a more eloquent and enlightening way of saying "**** off you B******s and leave me alone." ;)

[blp]

However, I don't think it's always necessarily a case of wanting something absolute or simple: we want to make sense, and that doesn't necessarily mean simple. Someone (Unnamable?) said recently that man isn't a rational being, but a rationalizing one. A good story, whether fictional or factual, can help us make sense of a complex world without over-simplifying - give us different perspectives on life. Understand how we and others work; "Lolita" would be a great example, actually; not because you sympathize with Humbert, but rather because you get an angle on how he thinks - instead of just making him a monster, you have a human being. Storytelling allows us the antithesis of mathematical measurement, the antidote to digital 1s and 0s, the grays between black and white. Much like dreams are supposed to be our subconscious trying to piece together what we've experienced during a day, storytelling is a half-conscious attempt to organize our own and others' experiences. Poetic lie-sense.

This is close to what my sense of all this, but I'd quibble a bit over the making sense of things bit. It struck me reading this post how often I feel when immersed in a story that a story was the only way of dealing with the issues presented because they don't fit a governing theory. Much as one might like to moralise, it becomes impossible. The element of time can be very important in this, because what is or appears true at one moment - and thereby governs a character's actions and the readers' sense of what they ought to be doing - will not necessarily be true at another moment. The point may very well be the encounter with senselessness rather than making sense. This is not, however, automatically an incentive to nihilism. It might be an incentive to greater tolerance.

Unnamable, what you say about Waterland fits this, I think, the biochemical description of humans being just one of numerous descriptions that, from the point of view of day to day life are deeply inadequate on their own - like morality.


I think that all art is similar in this respect; an attempt to communicate emotion. I'll go further; a need to communicate emotion.

And of course, there is a similar, equal and opposite, urge to comprehend the emotions of others. That is why we read/listen to the stories; why we watch films and listen to music.

Essentially, we are trying to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'them'.

In Godard's Pierrot le Fou the American director Sam Fuller is asked why he makes films and replies 'Emotion'. The answer always reminds me of John Cassavetes movies where the emotions of the characters are often far more present than any rational explanation of their actions. Godard, I suspect, might have given a different answer from Fuller since his characters are often little more than cartoon characters acting out absurdist socio-political commentaries and the viewer's tendency to look for someone to identify with is often rigidly denied. Or he might have limited himself to one emotion, anger.


I want a much wider gap.
Tongue in cheek as this might be, I tend to agree. The sense of easy identification with a character's emotions strikes me as a disgusting lie. I really want to stop caring whether the girl gets the guy or the guy gets the girl. I know that once they do get each other this is where the problems begin, not end, but I usually find myself crying with happiness nonetheless. Goldarnit.

This is all reminding me of a time many years ago now when I wrote a short film script called 'Presents' and showed it to my mother. The title was supposed to refer both to time, film's perpetual present tense, and to a process of gift giving that ran through the film. There was also a 'will they won't they' romantic story suggested, though the characters were middle aged and the woman's name was 'Aunt'. Other than that, there was no clear plot and it ended, apparently unresolvedly, with one character telling 'Aunt' a nonsensical story - something that I saw as the last act of gift giving, one that echoed my own intentions with the film. My mother read it and said, rather harshly I thought, 'If I haven't understood it, then it's failed'. 'Or you've failed', I replied, 'if we have to see it in those terms.'

[blp]

PS nice cartoon, Unnamable. I missed it the first time round. The lifesaving power of literature!

[A Hard Rain]

I think this is a good thread. An important thread.

I do not think i was clear, necessarily, with my first post.

When I said absolute, or the universal, i meant it on a multitude of meanings. I was coining a term, more or less, using an empty cup 'universal' to create a group of new and old meaning(s)

I meant it in a basic form of truth/experience.
I meant it as in the common universal emotions. (thus empathy)
I meant it in the common experience of man.
I suppose the uncommon, too.

But yes, i think it is a good question.

[The Unnamable]

So in your case, the story would just be a more eloquent and enlightening way of saying "**** off you B******s and leave me alone." ;)
I am indeed a simple creature. However, I wasn’t being entirely flippant. Leopold Bloom says at one point, “I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine.” That’s how I feel. I don’t want us all touching one another’s souls, standing in one another’s shoes and respecting and appreciating one another’s ‘otherness’. It makes the world one huge Sesame Street and throws up people like Chris Martin of Coldplay. Is there a better reason for a man not to get in touch with his feminine side? (I wonder if I have a feminine side. God, I hope not.) The only place conflict doesn’t exist is in the minds of economically comfortable Liberals – those of whom Goethe once said, “they have no ideas, they only have sentiments.”

What I particularly like about Jane Austen’s ‘stories’ is the way she gives the sophisticated and observant reader the opportunity to share her outlook in a way that seems almost personal. Many times I have thought it was all series of jokes shared by Jane and me.

“Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure.” Ch 14

If I am bridging gaps, I am extremely particular about with whom I bridge them. :brow:

[blp]

Unnamable, not sure this Joyce quote isn't an argument for respecting each other's otherness. This is what I understand otherness to be - difference and, to some extent, unknowability. What it addresses brilliantly is solipsism, the tendency to project, to assume everyone else to be just like oneself.

[blp]

Reading back over this, I notice Xamonas' emphasis on the question of why people write stories is in danger of getting lost.

Answers, I suspect, will be different from author to author. Didn't Dostoyevky mainly write to pay off his gambling debts? But in many cases, I'm guessing it may be from a feeling of need for a story - or a mode of telling - that the author isn't finding elsewhwere. In other words, the desire to write may born of the desire to read - but to read something that doesn't yet exist.

[Virgil]

Perhaps I should amplify on my earlier comment of a story teller wanting the listner to see.

Let's say that as one walks to the store one evening one gets accosted and robbed. You might tell the police that you were robbed at gun point and 8 PM on such-and-such a corner.

But then you might come home and tell your wife about how you left the house somewhat disoriented and thinking about your father's operation, walked in a bad neighborhood without thinking about the circumstances, accosted by a robber, who you struggled (and you might provide the details here) to the ground, until he took out a gun, and you stopped, both of you stood up, and gave up your wallet with your left hand shaking. The robber takes off, and you notice you have blood dripping from your forehead and your shirt is all torn.

There is a big difference between what you layed out as the facts for the police (and this is not a story) and the story you told your wife. The difference is that you are making her see what happened.

Now let's say that a magazine is going to pay you for writing the story that just occured. You do a little research and you find out the robber was caught and you find out he's got a long history of this. And you find out he was abused as a child and his father was a robber too and went to jail. Now you weave this into the magazine piece and you've created another vision of what the reader sees. Entertainment, yes. Vision, yes.

[Whifflingpin]

Possibly we read stories not to connect with others but to affirm ourselves. A sort of analogy is that we can live in a town for years but suddenly it seems more "real" when it is mentioned in the national news. So we tend to read the kind of stories that tell us that we are right - or all right - or something like that.

.

[The Unnamable]

Unnamable, not sure this Joyce quote isn't an argument for respecting each other's otherness.
I think Stephen and Bloom are two sides of this coin. For Stephen the emphasis is on the ‘mine to be mine’ part and for Bloom it’s on the ‘his to be his’ part. Stephen, until he finally meets Bloom, is too little concerned with the otherness of others, Bloom far too much concerned with it.

“One man isn't any better than another, not because they are equal, but because they are intrinsically other, that there is no term of comparison. The minute you begin to compare, one man is seen to be far better than another, all the inequality you can imagine is there by nature. I want every man to have his share in the world's goods, so that I am rid of his importunity, so that I can tell him: "Now you've got what you want -- you've got your fair share of the world's gear. Now, you one-mouthed fool, mind yourself and don't obstruct me.'” DH Lawrence Women In Love

I can recognise someone’s right to be ‘other’ but I would like to maintain my right to be utterly uninterested if I so choose.

As for Xamonas’s question, do you remember the ending of Annie Hall, when Alvy is watching the rehearsal of the play he’s written based on his relationship with Annie? The ending of the ‘real’ relationship has been changed in the play:

The actor begins to leave as the actress jumps up from her chair.

ACTRESS: Wait! I'm-I'm gonna ... go with you. (The actor comes back. They embrace) I love you.

The camera cuts to Alvy, who turns and looks straight into the camera.

ALVY: (To the audience, gesturing) Tsch, whatta you want? It was my first play. You know, you know how you're always tryin' t' get things to come out perfect in art because, uh, it's real difficult in life.

Those looks to camera are priceless. They reassure us that someone is taking notice.

Perhaps what we want to read is simply a happy ending. I always feel cheated by happy endings, though.

[blp]

I usually feel cheated by happy endings too, though deliberately unhappy ones can feel just as conventional within a different set of parameters. The clincher is really very often just whether the ending - and the rest - are 'convincing' - and they can be in even the most fantastical story.

We may be dealing with Virgil's sense of a multiplicity of reasons here - Whifflingpin's idea of affirmation vs. Woody Allen making things turn out better in art than in real life. You could argue, of course, that he doesn't, merely alludes to the idea. But there's something in the tidiness of even the most complex story, the frame that bounds and contains it, that makes it easier to deal with than real life - an idea about stories and art in general that I find uncomfortable. It might be that the sense of affirmation relates to this - in much the same way that a well composed photograph of an ordinary, unpicturesque scene can give it a resonance the scene itself didn't seem to have - a sense of meaning. Uh oh.

What Virgil describes is something a little like gossip - by which I don't mean to denigrate it. It's the fascination of finding out more and more about a situation - and it points to why it is that non-linear narrative may sometimes have advantages: you show the scene, then you show how you got there. It is fascinating, but I don't feel a lot closer to understanding why.

That Lawrence quote is great.

[beer good]

I mostly dislike endings, period. The idea that a story - assuming a story is more than just plot - can have ONE clear beginning and ONE clear ending is ridiculous, and any novel that hints at the ending "and they lived happily ever after" or even "and they lived more or less normal lives ever after except for the people who died" usually leaves me feeling let down. So far, I've rarely come upon points in my life where I can say "Right, here's the end of that particular part of my life. The next time something happens to me, that's a completely different story." Unless everyone dies, the ending needs to be left more or less open and thus not really an ending at all. (Part of the reason I love "American Psycho", incidentally - it's circular!)

[Xamonas Chegwe]

What I particularly like about Jane Austen’s ‘stories’ is the way she gives the sophisticated and observant reader the opportunity to share her outlook in a way that seems almost personal. Many times I have thought it was all series of jokes shared by Jane and me.

So your wanting a wider gap doesn't apply to Ms Austen. You're quite happy to share a 'private joke' with her, picking up on the emotions that she is conveying, but are perhaps less inclined to experience the clumsy, clichéd, emotions that James Patterson or Dan Brown might want to spew at you. I can't fault you there.

That you are selective in your reading doesn't invalidate my proposal, it merely qualifies it. You are only interested in sharing the feelings of those that you consider worthy.

And I know that you weren't being flippant. But I'm afraid that in my original response to that post, I was being.

Incidentally, have you ever published anything? I'd like to read it if you have. I imagine you have some interesting emotions to share. ;)

[blp]

I know what you mean, beer good, but I can think of some good endings: Candide finally finding a retort to Pangloss, Raskolnikov redeemed in Crime and Punishment, Little Alex thinking of growing up in Clockwork Orange and, probably my favourite ending of all, Thackeray's for Vanity Fair, which is so brilliant and expertly judged that I won't say anything about it for fear of ruining it for anyone who hasn't read it. Suffice to say, it's a perfectly self aware use of narrative time and the emotional weight of an ending without recourse to metafiction.

I'm a great fan of American Psycho too, and, as I say, I'm much in sympathy with your objection to endings. But isn't there something ridiculous in complaining about the artifice of endings when the whole of a work of fiction is an artifice?

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I know what you mean, beer good, but I can think of some good endings: Candide finally finding a retort to Pangloss, Raskolnikov redeemed in Crime and Punishment, Little Alex thinking of growing up in Clockwork Orange and, probably my favourite ending of all, Thackeray's for Vanity Fair, which is so brilliant and expertly judged that I won't say anything about it for fear of ruining it for anyone who hasn't read it. Suffice to say, it's a perfectly self aware use of narrative time and the emotional weight of an ending without recourse to metafiction.

I quite agree with you about Vanity Fair. Don't ever go and see the latest film version. You'll hate the crappy, happy ending that was tagged onto it as much as I did.


I'm a great fan of American Psycho too, and, as I say, I'm much in sympathy with your objection to endings. But isn't there something ridiculous in complaining about the artifice of endings when the whole of a work of fiction is an artifice?

Endings are probably the hardest thing to get right. Not many books acheive it - especially longer works, I've noticed - short stories often do a better job. But I suppose it's better than ending every book with "To be continued..."

[beer good]

I'm a great fan of American Psycho too, and, as I say, I'm much in sympathy with your objection to endings. But isn't there something ridiculous in complaining about the artifice of endings when the whole of a work of fiction is an artifice?
Oh, obviously. And there ARE a lot of good endings that really are endings. But the biggest problem with a bad ending is that it usually reminds me that the whole story (or much of it) is artificial; it activates my puhlese filter. You know, that bit in your brain that goes "Oh, puh-LEEEESE!" when something happens that just seems TOO contrived, too dumb or too much like a deus ex machina. Part of the reason I always hated Douglas Coupland, for instance, is that his novels are usually pretty good - up until the last 10 pages, where it all just kind of fizzles out. Whether the ending is an ENDING (say, "Hamlet") or an open ending (say, "American Psycho"), it needs to be in tune with the rest of the story. It's the whole suspension-of-disbelief thing.

But above all, a bad ending is an ending that doesn't take the characters into account. Books (and for that matter, movies and TV shows) I like usually have very well-drawn characters, and I really dislike stories where it feels like the writer decides that once the plot is finished, I'm not supposed to care what happens to the characters. He/she doesn't need to tell me what happens afterwards, just give me some kind of hint that he/she cares too, that I didn't just spend 400 pages trying to figure a bunch of people out only to learn that the only reason they ever existed was to prove that the butler did it and beyond that there's no use for them.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

The trouble with a lot of popular fiction is not the ending itself, but the distance between it and the beginning.

[Virgil]

I mostly dislike endings, period. The idea that a story - assuming a story is more than just plot - can have ONE clear beginning and ONE clear ending is ridiculous, and any novel that hints at the ending "and they lived happily ever after" or even "and they lived more or less normal lives ever after except for the people who died" usually leaves me feeling let down. So far, I've rarely come upon points in my life where I can say "Right, here's the end of that particular part of my life. The next time something happens to me, that's a completely different story." Unless everyone dies, the ending needs to be left more or less open and thus not really an ending at all. (Part of the reason I love "American Psycho", incidentally - it's circular!)
But most stories end. It doesn't mean that life doesn't go on or that they live happily ever after. Take Pride and Prejudice for example. The story is the courting between Elizabeth and Darcy. The story ends because the courting comes to a conclusion or, better yet, a climax. Who knows if they live happily ever after. BTW, D.H. Lawrence almost always ends his novels with a projection of future life. He tries to not end his novels with a finality, but the story of the novel is concluded. Endings for novels can be more problematic than for short stories. Short stories are consolodated and so the story line is focused and its conclusion clear. Novels are wider in scope and so more amorphous to end. If that made sense.

[beer good]

He tries to not end his novels with a finality, but the story of the novel is concluded. Endings for novels can be more problematic than for short stories. Short stories are consolodated and so the story line is focused and its conclusion clear. Novels are wider in scope and so more amorphous to end. If that made sense.
Absolutely perfect sense. I think that's pretty much what I've been trying to say. Stories have to end, obviously, at least ones printed in books - sooner or later you must reach the last page. But they don't have to have an ending that says "This Is The End And Beyond This Is Nothing You Would Be Interested In". Finality. Good word. I'll try and use it more in casual conversation. :thumbs_up

[The Unnamable]

Incidentally, have you ever published anything? I'd like to read it if you have. I imagine you have some interesting emotions to share. ;)
Emotions? They’re illogical, aren’t they? I’ve ‘shared’ insights in the academic sense but I don’t share my most desperate observations publicly. They are reserved for three friends who “know too much to argue or to judge”. Besides, I’d have more difficulties getting published than Joyce had with Ulysses. You know where I live. I won’t say exactly what an evening out here is like. All I will say is that it’s like going on shore leave with Blackbeard. :brow:

[blp]

Sounds pretty saleable to me, actually. Prurience is a major force in the market. You might even be able to sneak in some great writing.

[The Unnamable]

Prurience is a major force in the market.
Prurience! This is art, mate! What's prurient about...? :brow:

[blp]

Prurience! This is art, mate! What's prurient about...? :brow:

Perfect! This is just how they want the argument to run. Guaranteed coverage in the 'serious' press and the scandal sheets. It's a surefire winner! :D