2 days ago, I was making fun of one woman for getting the idea of living like a fictional character. "Who goes about in the real world as the double of a fictional character without knowing from Day 1 that it's a lie?"
That phrase — "living like a fictional character" — unlocked an old memory of mine. I've attempted, at times, to write novels, and back in the early 90s, I worked on something with the title "My Life as a Fictional Character." The first-person voice was not a woman attempting to be some fictional character — like these women who set out to become Carrie Bradshaw (of "Sex and the City") — but a woman married to a novelist who uses her as raw material for his novels.
I'm glancing at some of these stories the NYT raked in, collected at "True Tales of ‘Sex and the City.'" None of the women seem to have fallen for the fantasy. They were just vaguely inspired to love the idea of living in New York. How could someone new to NYC get anywhere close to believing she was living like Carrie? Step 1 would be finding a place to live, which would squelch any fantasy. There's no later step where you are buying a lot of expensive shoes.
The word "fantasy" appears once in the set of mini-essays, and it's one by a man: "'Sex and the City' created an unrealistic fantasy for some women. I dated one." He has one anecdote to tell — it's about her preference for a brand-name bakery — and dismisses her with contempt:
Our relationship crumbled within weeks. It wasn’t until months after the breakup, while walking past that infamous bakery that I realized how the idolization of her basement apartment (on the perfect street!), the move, the shopping, the shoes and the disappointing birthday pastries were all linked to a fantastical life she saw through a TV series and rewatched exhaustively. It was a life I found too banal.
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the move, the shopping, the shoes and the disappointing birthday pastries were all linked to a fantastical life she saw through a TV series and rewatched exhaustively. It was a life I found too banal.
He said as he adjusted his Superman tights and ran off in search of crime!
I used to play like the heroes I saw on TV.
Then I turned 12.
No one wants a life too banal. What we desire is a life just banal enough.
Ann:
Now that you have refined your writing skills on the blog, time to try a new novel. It is about a single female law professor in a Midwestern university town and state Capitol. She blogs and marries a commenter. Liberal loons take over and occupy the state Capitol. The blogger and her husband get threatened by liberals. Serious stuff! Also fun and games at the law school.
The novel is written in the style of the late Tom Wolfe but different. Big hit. All fictional, of course.
I have to confess I've never seen an episode of "Sex and the City" or one of the movies. I've visited New York several times, it's a fun place, but I've never had the urge to move there. I just want to say if you go to Boston and visit "Cheers", no one will know your name. The food isn't all that great, and there are better bars not far away.
ISO Mr. Big! LOL
I have never watched the show, however, like Eleanor I have been to NYC several times. Great place to visit. Reminds me of a theme park with it's street vendors, Chinatown, and Little Italy. All entertaining places. Live there? Not on your life. I'd still be looking for a place to park.
Lots of these respondents were men...
Also never watched it, but a common observation was that it was a show with bunch of actresses playing gay men. That's really what made the women wanting to live the "Sex and the City" lifestyle so pathetic, beyond the economic hallucinations.
"Now that you have refined your writing skills on the blog, time to try a new novel. It is about a single female law professor in a Midwestern university town and state Capitol. She blogs and marries a commenter. Liberal loons take over and occupy the state Capitol. The blogger and her husband get threatened by liberals. Serious stuff! Also fun and games at the law school."
That's all already in the blog. What would the novel-processing be for? It would have to be a desire to go deeply within my emotional experience, which would invade my own privacy and put Meade into the position of the character I was in "My Life as a Fictional Character." How could I possibly exploit our life that way? It's just so wrong. You could say, well, then CHANGE everything, but what's my motivation? I'm securely retired and don't need to pursue a livelihood. I'm not interested in inventing a parallel world that's me but not me. The blog lets me live in the day as it unfolds and be present in my actual life. Finally, depicting liberals as "loons" is no way to get your novel sold and read. It's a way to make yourself toxic to the kind of people who publish novels and who read novels. I have thought of doing this, but I think it's a bad choice for me. This blog is special and important in a way that no novel I could write would ever be.
I was one of a small group of women who broke the barriers at an all men's college. At the time we were approached to write about it, but we declined. The experience was too raw. Now almost 50 years later, we could write it as a semi-fictional comedic memoir. Semi-fictional because there are still things that could hurt people. A few of us are considering it. We're still close, and even if we never published it, the writing collaboration could be fun. Like Julia Child and her friends collaborating on their cookbook.
Close your eyes and you're there. Or, if you find the exactly right shoes, you can click your heels together three times.
Ann:
Solid answer.
You could change lots of things in a novel. Better yet. Just go full Tom Wolfe and look at everything using cruel neutrality. You and Meade don't need to be characters in the novel. Use your imagination. Just set it in a Midwestern university city.
Willa Cather did a novel on Lincoln, Nebraska in the last century. I've never read it but I don't think she is in it.
And after all this time don't you agree that liberals are loons? They threatened to run you and your husband out of town on a rail. They hate you.
Surprised that you don't appreciate that conservatives buy books too. Also surprised that you think you would have to tailor your art for commercial purposes. And, of course, with self-publishing these days you bypass the editors in NYC.
Admittedly the blog is a new art form but a novel is a different thing altogether. Maybe the analogy is photography to painting. You are an excellent photographer.
Your blog is very special and to the extent that writing a novel would detract from the blog, please reject my stupid suggestion.
This blog is special and important in a way that no novel I could write would ever be.
One could look at this blog as a form of epistolatory novel which will never see print unless the comments are ruthlessly edited.
a woman married to a novelist who uses her as raw material for his novels.
That is an interesting premise for a novel. Lots of ways for the plot to evolve.
I often wonder how much authors draw upon, or sort of 'plagiarize', the people in their lives to put them in their novels. Inspiration does have to come from somewhere....why not your wife, husband, children, friends People in real life. Do the people in ...a popular novel recognize themselves? How would they feel about it?
I personally agree with Althouse in her comment (as I interpreted it that is) above that it can be an invasion of privacy for all concerned if the novel is to accurate to the models..
Given the amount of time that most people spend watching television or Netflix, I don't see how it is possible that it does not shape people's perception of reality. In fact I wonder if in most cases it isn't the dominant force shaping how people perceive the world.
Or it could be the dominant factor shaping personality and perception is bad experiences. If that's the case that real life bad experiences are more important than entertainment in shaping what we pay attention to and believe, then real life bad experiences are more important than entertainment despite the tiny fraction of time probably spent in traumatic states in most cases.
I can think of at least one other plausible hypothesis, but I don't see how it can possibly be the case that entertainment is less than the third most important force shaping human perception given the average percentage of each day spent on it.
My wife and I saw season 4. The DVD was on sale at Wal-Mart. It was charming and very funny in places, especially the time the girls visited a couple teaching tantric sex, and saw the woman masturbating the man for a long, long time, before coming in the face of the future governor of New York.
For some reason, although we talked about it, we never got around to watching the rest of the series.
"...and saw the woman masturbating the man for a long, long time, before coming in the face of the future governor of New York."
I never imagined a Nixonian moment could be so vivid.
"To mark the 20th anniversary, we asked readers to tell their stories of how 'Sex and the City' inspired their moves to New York. Several hundred replied."
"... with many recounting how the show painted a seductive vision of Manhattan: endless brunches with gal pals, rewarding careers, a sea of handsome suitors and, of course, shopping sprees. Lots of these respondents were men"
Hah! Do 'The Sopranos' next!
I couldn't watch past the irrelevant but apparently obligatory swipe at Trump around 1:10, and Colbert's drama-queen head-in-hands reaction, and the cackle from the mob in the seats.
Fuck them all.
Someone, at some point in the past, wrote that "Sex in the City is a show about gay men, but the characters are played by women." Probably explains why so many men were inspired to move there.
When I was a teen during the sixties, I wanted to be the Steve McQueen character in The Thomas Crown Affair. The romantic allure of a fictional ideal often overwhelms common sense objections to the fantasy.
If you really want to be a novelist then start reading Sarah Hoyt at accordingtohoyt.com.
@mandrewa: that most people spend watching television or Netflix, I don't see how it is possible that it does not shape people's perception of reality
I can't remember the technical term, but yes. In other English-speaking countries that show a lot of American TV, people sometimes dial 911 in an emergency instead of the real number. TV teenagers are always shorter than their parents, even though this is rarely true in real life, because the actors playing parents and teens are almost always adults and sometimes the ages are too close. Pregnant women in drama invariably have their labor triggered by an accident. Cops can't really shoot out tires. Forensics labs can't crack the case in minutes.
I liked SATC, but I can't say it "inspired" me in any way. As a Manhattanite-in-exile now living in the "Edge City" I call "the Anri-Manhattan" the only thing SATC may have inspired me to do is feel melancholy that I left NYC when it was relatively inexpensive to live there, and then the gate, as it were, closed behind me so that I could never afford to live there now, let alone live the kind of lifestyle Carrie and her friends lived.
Several hundred replied....Lots of these respondents were men
Why not give a number?
Answer: Lots = 10.
I think it was Steven King who had a story about a character who was a character in a story.
I think it was Steven King, also, who had a story about an author who used a magic word processor to delete his wife.
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