When I was a very lost and confused teenager, I read a small book called This is It by a British philosopher named Alan Watts (I still have that book today, as a matter of fact).
It's something that Jack, from The Marbury Lens -- and I -- say to ourselves quite a lot.
This is it.
Watts' book is essentially about perception and reality, the intertwined concepts that torment Jack (and a lot of readers) so much in The Marbury Lens.
When Jack begins popping back and forth between here and Marbury, he questions his sanity and wonders what is real. To him, the feeling of his feet inside his sneakers as he walks along a street in London is just as real as the arrow that injures him in Marbury, and he can't figure out how his perceptions and reality end up balancing out.
Here's a cool quote from Watts:
No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time; he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.
No doubt, the characters in The Marbury Lens go through their personal episodes of... um... inflexibility, and this becomes really the essence of the novel's most grating torment: like Jack himself, readers have to figure out for themselves whether or not what's happening to him is REAL, or if it is all a manifestation of the post-traumatic stress he experiences as a result of what a sexual predator has put him through.
It's a tough thing.
I could make some Venn diagrams about the hundreds of email messages and other comments I've received in the 10 weeks since the book has come out, but I'll save that for another time.
First, there are the readers who figure out an answer to the reality/perception issue (and the answers split among members of this group), and then there are the readers -- frustrated ones -- who send me messages begging for an explanation: is it real, or what??? The ones who need a concrete answer.
Well, ever since I was a teenager, like Jack, and before I got all into my Huxley-slash-Alan-Watts phase, I wanted to know the answer to that, too.
I still don't.
This is getting long. I'll continue with readers' perceptions and book reality tomorrow. And I do want to eventually include a little description of the physics that construct Jack's universe.
At least, in my perception.
This is it.
11 comments:
looking forward to your physics lesson. alan watts really brought a delish brand of conscoisness, thanks for reminding me.
I'm so curious--how do you answer when readers ask you these questions? Do you give them a definite, hard answer? To me, part of the pleasure of the book is chasing my own tail about it. And it's completely unclear which answer--REAL, as in, Marbury exists for all, or UNREAL, as in, Marbury is a manifestation of trauma/coping mechanism for Jack--is less terrifying.
I reached the end of the book and felt such relief. Yes, I was emotionally invested in Jack and Conner and wanted to follow their story, but I wasn't ready to be confronted by a (rigid, brittle) wall of certainty. Because I wanted to keep thinking about it.
I guess The Marbury Lens is like a projective test. You put it in front of readers and ask, "what might this be?" Both the answer and the way people answer it will vary tremendously, but as you say, will fall into patterns. Your inbox must be a fascinating place.
Um, sorry for the long comment.
Thank you wendel. It's weird, but I find myself thinking about Watts at some point every day. I wonder if he'd be happy to know that? Maybe it's the link between his book and how intensely messed-up I was at the time.
The album he made in 1962 (also called This is It) is starting to get some attention, too... something that I think is both overdue and well-deserved. Anyway, I'd recommend listening to it (although it is definitely NOT for the need-a-concrete-explanation crowd).
Cheers.
Sarah,
I find that the best answer is "yes."
If someone asks me Is this real? I say yes.
If someone asks me Is Jack suffering from delusions? I say yes. These people usually ask the follow-up Is Jack going to get better? And I say, you guessed it, yes.
Nobody argues with yes.
I guess it is a kind of Rorschach story.
And I still need to ask you something that's really been bothering me for years. Will send you a promised email sometime... May be fuel for your blog at some point.
Thanks for stopping by.
Sarah, he also likes to tell us annoying emailers "it's in the book" lol
As one of those individuals that has bombarded his in box since last April, Andrew has always been very accommodating without answering too much. He still makes the reader answer the question for themselves. Which is frustrating but gratifying too.
Andrew-this is my favorite blog about ML, well at least until the follow up.
Connie
Thanks, Connie.
Tomorrow, I'm going to talk about why the is-it-real-or-not question doesn't really matter.
See you then.
And, just think, maybe there will be ARCs of my next book available at the TLA conference where you got the ARC for The Marbury Lens at...
Maybe they'll -- craziness!!!--- invite me to come, too...
Andrew
Dope.
Personally I can't understand why it matters so much to some readers. It's not a case study, it's fiction. The fact that one can't decide for certain is one of the things that makes this book great.
Wow Matt thanks for the kick in the ass. We(I) know its not a case study and its fiction but that's the fun part.
When I open a book and I'm inside it, it becomes real and I want to know how it all works. Its the same situation like S. Myers fans and JK Rowling's fans, they just want to understand the physics of the world the author has created.
Knowing full well its fiction but as a reader you invest a part of yourself into the story and understanding as much as you can is just full-filling.
I guess I could just except everything at face value and say, poor kid he's fucked up and now he has a split personality and will probably become a serial killer or I can go with the story and except that ML is real and find other readers that want to discuss the little things and work out what's happening when Jack is with Nickie but we are seeing him in ML.
I don't think wanting to know more takes away from the book - it makes the book even better just like now knowing makes the book better.
*stepping off my box and going to bed. Sorry, typer road rage I guess.
Maybe my librarian friend has some higher up friends at TLA and we can get you that invitation**
Connie
I remember a while back, in a string of comments about "bad words," one person said something like we writers should tone down the way people speak... if we wrote everything to reflect reality, then it would be journalism, not fiction.
It kind of made me think of the Hemingway quote that novels are truer than if they really happened.
In fact, I think there's a heck of a lot of intentional fiction in journalism, and I try my hardest to put as much true stuff as I can in my novels. Well, in fact, I know this is true... my novels are all about real things.
Sometimes it's hard to define the boundaries of fiction, too, I suppose.
"Sometimes it's hard to define the boundaries of fiction, too, I suppose."
Isn't the point of fiction is no boundaries?
Connie
I've always said that writing fiction is just telling the truth about things that never happened.
And @Homeplate, I'm so sorry if I implied that my experience with the book should have any bearing on someone else's experience, because it shouldn't. I looked back at my comment and I did kind of come off as a bit of an ass, so sorry about that.
I do see your point about the details. I can see how getting really deep into all of that could certainly make the experience that much more fun, but for me, it can interrupt the suspension of disbelief.
I mean, just for example, if you go back and really consider the logic and the rules of the world of Middle Earth that Tolkien created, one might wonder why Gandalf didn't just call on the Eagles to pick Frodo and him up, and carry them over Mordor, to drop the Ring into Mount Doom from the air. When I first heard of that gap in the plot logic I was devastated. Then I decided that I didn't care. I love the story, and I would rather be swept up in it.
But that doesn't mean that other readers should do the same. As far as I'm concerned whatever makes you enjoy the story the most, go for it.
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