The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Hors d'voeures
A spectre is haunting my mind and that spectre is the role of fiction in the world today. Two weeks ago, I touted Transmedia collaboration as one potential breakaway from the tailspin I see occurring in fictive realms, but pure social collaboration (which is the heart of transmedia fiction) doesn't fully sate my appetite or my interest. And while it may be a swell idea, and one that I'm avidly hoping to pursue more actively once this semester is over and I have time to think again, it doesn't fully encompass the full necessity of fiction.

Back in my Ontologica essay, I argued that for fiction to be truly revitalized in today's hyper-visual world, there had to be a definitive reason for text to be text, and not say a movie, play, YouTube Video or Tweet syndication. And in my particular idiom, I've always felt that certain aspects of postmodernism lend very well to building such a relevant need for fiction to be printed text--perhaps not always linear printed text, but largely text with littler or no graphical intrusion beyond formatting and other structural elements.

Postmodern construction, though, is labyrinthine, and while it could transgress into a transmedic enterprise, I'm not sure how easy it would be to find enough people willing to work with the same ontologies for an extended period to make a successful postmodern transmedia project.

Therefore, I've largely kept these two notions separate in my head, and as such, don't expect this essay to attempt to bring those two worlds into collision anytime soon. Everything previous is merely setup.

Meat
So in the spirit of getting on with it, I recently received Ronald Sukenick's Narralogues as an un-birthday present from my good friend Dave. And while logic would say that taking on yet another thing to do right now would be suicidal, I started reading over my lunchbreak at work this week.

In it, Sukenick opens with a bit of an essay setting up the rest of the collection (of short stories) saying that "fiction is a matter of argument rather than dramatic representation" (2). He goes on to say

My point is that all fiction can be profitably regarded as argument. When you define fiction by representation you end up confining it to realism at some level and arguing that fiction, as a form of make-believe, is a way of lying to get at the truth, which if not palpably stupid is certainly round-about and restrictive. My approach frees fiction from the obligations of mimesis, popularly, and most often critically, assumed to be its defining quality. (2)

This of course really sparked my interest, as I've often said before that realist fiction, today carries next to nothing in weight, especially when stacked against more popular visual media. But if we are to repurpose our fiction into argument, then, effectively all bets are _______, and we can give the reader something more to latch onto than just entertainment. Specifically, Sukenick channels the persuasive direction of fiction towards that of defining experiential elements that the reader can then internalize and use to assist in coping with life. He says,

I realized that the pleasure and excitement that I derived from some novels was attributable to the way they helped me understand my experience and live my life. In other words, for me fiction had always been a way to knowledge rather than a way to goof off. (5)

I don't think this is too far of a stretch for any serious reader to recall a moment in a novel, story or poem that has later gone to shape that reader's understanding of life. I thrive on such experience, and perhaps for this reason I am so attached to works of postmodern literature because what they lack is any true sense of mimesis, rather supplanting it with ontological interpretation that forces me to recognize deeper variances in existence than just the surface "known" world we live in.

A quick list of works that have impressed me as such (incomplete, unordered, _____)

• John Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse"
• Mark Danielewski House of Leaves
• Susan Sontag "Baby"
• William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming"
• Allan Ginsberg "America"
• Jorge Luis Borges "The Garden of Forking Paths," "The Library of Babel," "Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius"
  
• Ben Marcus The Age of Wire and String

I'm certain we all have our lists, but mine largely revolves around the notion of Plurality and Ontological interpretation. "What If" mantras interest me deeply, and works like those above largely build upon unseen alternatives, endless expansion, and certain collision of the known into the unknown.

And by extension, my Not an Autobiography project stems in this exact direction. Despite the fact that I've long struggled with the question, "who would want to read a series of linked stories told as mock autobiography from voices of different versions of myself, of which none physically exist on this plane?" the project has taught me a lot about myself and my craft as a writer.

So as I circle back to the premise here, the question of can fiction function as argument, I have to say, I'm leaning in the direction of agreement. I'm about half way through Sukenick's stories, and while many of them remind me of Platonic Dialogues, (which Sukenick attributes as "a remote progenitor" of this book), the overall content is both interesting and thought-provoking. While it's not particularly full of flowery description, the arguments presented are both complex and meaty enough to help pull the narrative along.

All definitely food for thought, and perhaps more formal application once I get my head fully wrapped around how you pull it all off without becoming pedantic.