Josh

I never thought I'd say it but I think Ron May is totally correct, at least
about the purpose of fiction and its relationship to reality [or pedantry to
be more precise].  Fiction is there to entertain us, and that happens at
various emotional levels.  Some of those emotional responses use a
good web of plausible background detail that will convince us that what we
are seeing is a glimpse of a broader universe.

Two examples:

Peter Jackson spoke in interviews about the importance of this incidental
detail in the Lord of the Ring films, in convincing you that that world had
history and wasn't built three weeks beforehand.  After all there are no orc
armaments experts out there ready to
pick up on incorrect detail.  The detail doesn't have to be authentic, just
plausible and help in the job of transporting you somewhere eelse for a
couple of hoursa.

Good fiction is pretty timeless and when its main subject is humanity then
whether the background detail is correct or not is essentially irrelevant.
Shakespeare's Roman plays would have been written and staged and costumed
with an early Modern European perception of what ancient Rome was like, a
very select and probably inaccurate view of what that was like.  There was
probably some wanker in the audience tut-tutting about the hem colours
of the togas but that was irrelevant - the entertainment is the words and
the way they resonate with the audience.  If they work then the entire
staging can be changed without seriously affecting the work's quality.

Yes, I'm all for accuracy - its a good thing, but these are works of
fiction.  I and I'm sure most people don't rely on them as a source of
information about the ancient world, and I know from personal experience
that a rollicking good yarn read when young [take a bow Mary Renault]
encouraged me to read more widely and find out more.

Good fiction will work as entertainment, even when Columbus finds his GPS
doesn't work well because of interference from the hovercraft or his Seiko
watch.

Denis
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Denis Gojak
Banksia Heritage + Archaeology
PO Box 457
Newtown NSW 2042
Australia

W    02 9558 0220
F     02 9558 4120
M    0413 030 293
E    [log in to unmask]


----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Brinker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: popular images of archaeologists


> Smoke,
>
>     Isn't the point of fiction to make the unbelievable believable? That
is
> what I was always told. The point of fiction is to take events that could
> never really happen in the real world and make them some how seem
plausable.
> While I am not as good of a debater as Ron is, the ball is being dropped a
> bit too often in this case. Make me a believer, not more of a skeptic.
>
>    Josh Brinker
>
>