Daily Times

I think that stories are exceedingly important for us as a civilization: the proverbial human civilisation.

They rhapsodise our position resplendently like the eminent English poet and Nobel laureate T.S Eliot summed up in his poem a very gentle feeling of his in ‘Rhapsody in a windy night.’

We think that, we, in particular belong to a storytelling specie who, more or less, enjoy the go to connect emotions and organise things or structure weary dreams that end up to majestic realities amazing us unprecedentedly. Thing that behove us to write or tell stories, that aren’t true entirely, is that, we want to communicate feelings by a medium as old as hills, surviving perilous downpours of annihilation and letting humanity to express their most private selves that aren’t exposed necessarily in general.

Moreover, many a time, I get to nag about the precise difference between fiction and fact, however, in my savvy all humans existing today in one way or other are withholding very unique stories behind the fabric of their unconscious berg of mind, so how should we border fiction by its rival fact remains in haze, thus far.

Like, a story can begin from anywhere, it can underlie its origin wherever you want to relate to, even in my person here sitting in a melancholy room, where outside of the window the sun is very near to set, or maybe not, can weave a story in split of a second. Perhaps we read and share novels or let’s just say fiction because we think that they are expediently significant for us as human beings.

Moreover, many a time, I get to nag about the precise difference between fiction and fact, however, in my savvy all humans existing today in one way or other are withholding very unique stories behind the fabric of their unconscious berg of mind, so how should we border fiction by its rival fact remains in haze, thus far

In that case, we must not furnish any kind of edge on history books or any kind of book of non-fiction over fiction. As very succinctly Aristotle has put his ideas on fiction that fiction is always a kind of truth: this kind shakes the very underpinnings of factual world.

It is important to note that the first thing, as once a great novelist said, a child needs is love and care; the second thing, he adds, a child asks for is: tell me a story. Fiction helps you to dissect the veneers of dry realities to understand what kind of creature we are.

Let’s imagine: a child is gazing deeply towards sky. His gaze is unmistakeably innocent and unadulterated. But he kind of cannot make sense of this gaze inasmuch as he considers that just a short period of brooding. In effect, this gaze is a fictional gaze, trying to send a signal that: I belong there, out there, over the star-spangled sky. What this alludes? This, for sure, alludes that everything is to a considerable extent floating in fiction. That does not mean beyond reality. All the same, that also means in the reality but aloof from it.

The awesome French philosopher Gilles Deleuze writes in his book essays critical and clinical: ” The ultimate aim of literature is to set free, in the delirium, this creation of a health or this invention of a people, that is, a possibility of life. To write for this people who are missing . . . ” Deleuze was more a Nietzschean philosopher. He wanted to eliminate what is passé and stalemate. His work on literature to a great extent predicated upon that thought should be let free from the clutches of past. When thought is set free, literature works inclusively. It can cut, as Michel Foucault says in his seminal sentence: “knowledge is not made for understanding, it is for cutting.” It can do everything. These might look heavely philosophical but, nonetheless, these are important substantiations to understand the importance of fiction and literature in various experiences of life.

Additionally, in the same book Deleuze further writes:” To write is also to become something other than a writer. To those who ask what literature is, Virginia Woolf responds, “To whom are you speaking of writing?” The writer does not speak about it, but is concerned with something else.

If we consider these criteria, we can see that, among all those who make books with a literary intent, even among the mad, there are very few who can call themselves writers.”

In post-structuralism the writing is a relation. A writer is not the ultimate writer of a text. He is only one amongst a slew of other interpreters reading the text. No need to panic! What Deleuz imply here is that a writer of a piece of literature is not merely a writer he is allegedly something else also. What he is then? As per my understanding, he also plays a role of mediator: the go-between, who only sketch out raw materials and moulds them into a piece of writing which is himself does not claim to be his. Nevertheless, ilk of Deleuze, the post structualists and et al, in literature are hard to cotton on. These writers interpret literature in a very philosophical layer. But literature has to be more than philosophy. It is more clear and pleasurable than philosophy, however. Therefore, litetature should be envisaged as the arena of romanticism. Not in philosophical terms but in its facile terms. Nonetheless, it also should not be bound to a theory or logos. You love flowers and birds, I suppose, you must be a literary person. This should be the behaviour of literature: all inclusive.

In the similar vein, what is literature? Never rely upon what Woolf or Deleuz had written. They have interpreted it in their own prejudices. Your regimes of truth are completely distinct and different than mine. In this juncture, it is more accurate and suitable to ask yourself: what is literature. The answer is simple. Literature is but three things: writing, reading and appreciating. All the philosophical jargons are run of the mill. For me even, what Deleuze is reaching upon is as clear as mud. And I am afraid for you is the same.

Books in fiction and literature are significant to talk about. Books store the knowledge which is in granary of mind. And for that, jumping to Italo Calvino the famed Italian postmodern novelist and short story writer would be worth a while. He talks about how to pick and then read a book. The complexities and anxieties of a read and his/her relation with the book he is indulged in. What really is classic? His ideas a very clear and simple. Calvino’s short essay, “Why Read the Classics?” resounds with this sense of amazement as well as with the author’s affable, cool attitude that one really begins to love literature by far.

On reading classic books Calvino suggests us to go back read all those books again which shaped us as children. There is every possibility for you to have a different Shakespeare in your second-childhood than you had in your first childhood. However, Calvino argues: ”

In fact, reading in youth can be rather unfruitful, owing to impatience, distraction, inexperience with the product’s “instructions for use,” and inexperience in life itself.” What he suggests is that reading fiction should not be a capitalistic manoeuvre but a pleasure; this pleasure should be felt with deep emotions: the pathos and all that.

Calvino marks that in our juvenile days books that we have picked and read are better to be read again in our middle ages or late for those books will unleash different meaning to us in different conditions of our lives. It really is appreciated of Calvino that he voiced this feeling. In our hectic and tumultuous world, everything is in competition. You read a book and throw it away for the list of TBR is formidable. You simply can’t make sense for whom you are reading. And in this circumstance, Calvino suggests you to go for classics: and keep them with you. Read them, re-read them and continue with this.

All in all, but what is classic? In the same short essay Calvino beautifully defines classic in many ways but I’ll share here three cardinal definitions which are apt and simple:

“A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.”

“A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.”

“Your’ classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it.”

Fiction, literature, classic all make you human. When someone asks you what makes human different than all other animal. The answer that immediately makes its appearance is that we speak and think: we tell stories to each other. We poke fun at, laugh and cry: and these all come out the frock of literature.

At last I will share with you a beautiful poem written by Janice James to assuage your soul in this hard times of Corona Virus and request those all reading this to rest in home.

I’ve travelled the world twice over,

Met the famous: saints and sinners,

Poets and artists, kings and queens,

Old stars and hopeful beginners,

I’ve been where no-one’s been before,

Learned secrets from writers and cooks

All with one library ticket

To the wonderful world of books

The writer is a student, based in Turbat. He Tweets at @shahabakram6 and can be reached at shahabakram0852@gmail.com