Writers fictionalize facts:

[blazeofglory]

I wonder at times writers fictionalize things deviating from truths. I think that is done not because they wan to justify truths but because they wan to present their vainglories. The first and foremost responsibility of a writer is to speak truths. Since truths do not interest people they propel them with their fictitious and fabricated ideas. It goes well until it becomes detrimental to some people. In today’s world writers are revered and whatever they say becomes public opinions or impressions.
When I read V.S. Naipaul’s excerpts published recently in India Today something there proves the writer’s vainglory. He sounded highly judgmental of Niradh Choudhari . He wrote critically of the whole generation of modern writers in India.

I do not agree to many of the points he wrote.

All I feel is that a writer must not shy from speaking truths.

[JCamilo]

I wonder at times writers fictionalize things deviating from truths.

Let us wonder about it ? The fine line between fiction and truth is often cloudy.
Another thing, no writer creates out of nowhere. There is always a source.


I think that is done not because they wan to justify truths but because they wan to present their vainglories.

So, what about writers that present a text that does not defend anything, that makes us feel uneasy ?


The first and foremost responsibility of a writer is to speak truths.

No. The first and foremost responsibility of a writer is not having any responsability but writing.


Since truths do not interest people they propel them with their fictitious and fabricated ideas.

What is truth is considerable variable.
The language is already a fiction. A word is not the thing that it describes, so all effort of communication starts from a distance from the real object. Every fabricated idea goes that way.
A Metaphor, for example, is a fabricated idea with a relation to a given object, fact, idea. It is a literary device, so many writers create a illusion of the world they are avoiding, so the person can relate to it and not live it. (We are not objective beings and we need to relax)
And everyman create fictions and fabricated ideas, this is what we call thinking.


It goes well until it becomes detrimental to some people. In today’s world writers are revered and whatever they say becomes public opinions or impressions.

Writers are always supposed to be enlighted people, but only a handful achive the status you describe. And that have been since always. We quote Plato because this writer was revered and what he said became public.


When I read V.S. Naipaul’s excerpts published recently in India Today something there proves the writer’s vainglory. He sounded highly judgmental of Niradh Choudhari . He wrote critically of the whole generation of modern writers in India.

And ? Humans are very critical.


I do not agree to many of the points he wrote.

So, why don't you argue with the points he wrote, instead of creating a text to justify why you would not agree with him. (Agreeing with his points and with him are two different things)


All I feel is that a writer must not shy from speaking truths.

I bet all of them do not.

[Demian]

"Art is a lie to tell the truth."
-Picasso

[Three]

.....

[Mesalithasamut]

All "truths" are created; therefore they are all flexible; they are all fleeting and simply the reaction of an action. Anyone who claims they understand the vastness of any situation is mislead; they can merely react to the data gathered by their senses.

[blazeofglory]

All "truths" are created; therefore they are all flexible; they are all fleeting and simply the reaction of an action. Anyone who claims they understand the vastness of any situation is mislead; they can merely react to the data gathered by their senses.

I agree,there are truths within truths and in point of fact what we call the summit is not the summit, and you feel once you reach the summit you have perceived you will feel you have scale the ultimate height. But once you reach it , atop, you will perceive another summit, and there is no end to it and it goes on getting higher and higher infinitely and unendingly.

Therefore, I agree that truths are perceived, and what we call red is not necessarily red, and despite the fact that its redness has universal acceptance. It is, however sensory perception, and the blind can not perceive it red.

Material truths are not necessarily real, and these are philosophical questions.
However on a material plane, things are different. Here the central idea is there are writers who cover up truths. Since they are gifted with skills-linguistic, stylistic, philosophical, they can fabricate things. This is okayed, let them do, for theirs is a zone in which they revel in fictionalization, imagination and yet they too have a limit set for them, a moral limit indeed.

For example I know a writer, writing about Nepal living abroad and all he that he does to grab attention he fabricate things to an extent that it shames all of us to read them. There are stories weaven about sexual perversions, untruths, and totally hyperbolic facts and we all object them.

I agree a writer must be free to write, and he should not be subjected to censorship to his freedom of expression, but this should not be done at the expense of others' sentiments.

[Zippy]

The idea that writing must be 'truthful' and narratives realistic only really came about in the late-eighteeth and nineteenth-centuries with the realist novel. Before that novels were more or less fantasies, albeit often with groundings in real life worlds.

With the rise of the postmodernist novel, realitivity and the limitations of language I think serious writers need to question if 'truth' is ever achievable in a novel. Words are constructs after all, and it is questionable whether they can ever acurately describe anything. What is truth anyway? If we can't answer that question in our own minds then why expect that we'll ever pin-it-down on paper?

[blazeofglory]

The idea that writing must be 'truthful' and narratives realistic only really came about in the late-eighteeth and nineteenth-centuries with the realist novel. Before that novels were more or less fantasies, albeit often with groundings in real life worlds.

With the rise of the postmodernist novel, realitivity and the limitations of language I think serious writers need to question if 'truth' is ever achievable in a novel. Words are constructs after all, and it is questionable whether they can ever acurately describe anything. What is truth anyway? If we can't answer that question in our own minds then why expect that we'll ever pin-it-down on paper?

No zippy, we never cam pin truth down on paper. No. Truth is unplumbed anywhere. We can put it this way too: there layers of truth, truth on the surface and truth at the center. Truths are layered, and all we see it the outer of the truth all of us are seeking endlessly.

This may sound rather incomprehensible. We can better understand it by use of a metaphor. When you are at the base-camp or at the bottom of a mountain you may see a peak and you may think that is the end of it, the last top. But when you reach another mountain taller than that will be seen and when you scale the summit another will appear, and keep on climaxing, endless ranges of mountain will be at sight, ons higher than the other infinitely. But see this is a sheer metaphor. And physically Mt. Everest is the highest peak. Metaphorically, summits get growingly higher and higher, once one is peaked the other emerges.

All I said are in parables. And in point of fact all that writers do is write in metaphors or in images. We see images of truths. Once we see truth in full form, we attain Nirvana. Literature is not manifestation of truth; it is in essence an image of truth. Art is as said by Aristotle an imitation of truth.

But my point as I wrote for this thread is quite different. Here we have said about limitation of truth, but the point I raised is about distortion of truth. Smearing truth, blackening it bleakly.

Writers can not remain unaccountable for shaping and coursing human opinions. If they mislead, or lead people astray they must answer for that.

[JCamilo]

Aristotle wasn't so keen about what is art. They didn't even had a word for it.
Writers are not shaping human opinion (opinion is something subjective, not factual), they are posting their own vision.
If you are talking about a writer which books does not shows what he beliefs it is truth, making him a hypocrite, then we are going probally to find a poor book, because he will probally fail to give quality to something he does not believe.
However, art have and will not and if we are smart enough to keep it, be limited by concepts of truth and morality - changeable things.

[Morten]

But my point as I wrote for this thread is quite different. Here we have said about limitation of truth, but the point I raised is about distortion of truth. Smearing truth, blackening it bleakly.

Writers can not remain unaccountable for shaping and coursing human opinions. If they mislead, or lead people astray they must answer for that.

You mean sort of like the distortion of the "truth" about Che Guevara (a malicious assassin who murdered innocent women and children without a fair trial) so that young people in Europe and America can sport him on a t-shirt because they are lead to believe his acts were rebellious and thus "cool".

Because there's a neat distortion of truth, if you ask me.