Realities, Not A Novel. A Tale From Real Life

Or, a Disquietingly Vague Treatise on Understanding Fictional Characters

Introduction

The title above graces the front cover of all copies of a 1825 novel by a certain Anne Raikes Harding. Alas, I have not found any available specimens of the first volume so didn't have a chance to read it. But I don't really need to, in order to use it as a fun example of the point of this post. Which is that I sense some vague trouble with how a great deal of people online interpret stories and more precisely their characters. Ignoring the Death of the Author and interpreting fictional fictional characters with the standards of real people are flattening the potential of discussion of books and taking up space that could be devoted to aesthetic judgements. The way fictional characters exist is fundamentally different from how real people exist and the blurring of the lines between them can be a powerful and strange tool. It has already been. Hence the title.

A short disclaimer must stand here to ward off right-wing weirdos who go about screaming how political correctness has gone too far and the censorship it has awakened is to be the end of Western culture, whatever the fuck that might be. Go away. I'm talking about fiction here. Factually incorrect nonfiction volumes by Holocaust deniers should not be available in high-street shops. There is an easily identifiable gap between books by literal neo nazis and a fictional story of a turbulent relationship by an otherwise normal person. Some time ago Hope Not Hate compiled a little list of these problematic books and The Bookseller reacted. We all wish they hadn't done that. The author of the article, a certain Kieran Smith decided to quote the words of a past president of the Booksellers Association from 1964! 1964! When he opines: "Liberals today are much concerned for people being easily swayed by bigotry and narrow-minded ideas. Bookshops have not been immune to the growth of identity politics. Shops may now be judged on how many sections they have given over to particular identities, or how representative of a particular gender or culture the books are that are featured on a display table. Even literary prizes as respected as the Booker Prize are seen through the lens of how many women are on the shortlist—the 2019 prize being celebrated for having "no white men at all". I want to make it very clear, that I condemn lunatics like Smith and I try and challenge them every time the wind blows them in my way.

The emergence of the novel and fictional entities

The roots of the novel genre run deeper than the 18th-century, but the Zeitgeist of the age helped mold its particulars and amplify its success. On the one hand, the vogue of decorum, symmetry and the cultivation of argument inspired authors like Defoe and Fielding, on the other hand the cult of sensibility, feeling and philanthropy helped shape the more psychological side of the emerging novel. As the century progressed, many became alarmed about the amount of fiction younger generations consume; observing the flaws of believable characters and groups, a new audience was exercising their critical thinking skills. This new audience was increasingly made up of women and working class people and the new characters were novel – yes, that's a pun – because instead of being versions of ancient types like older characters tended to be, they were non-aristocratic and easy to identify with, while still guiding their readers through a course of an engaging set of troubles, trials and tribulations. The epistolary novel became so popular precisely because the fictional characters having supposedly written them, seemed more remote and thus more real. By trying to make stories look as real as possible – some of them desperately – authors hoped to strengthen this identification and thus the grip of their books. At this point all English and Comparative literature graduates should be having war flashbacks to Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel, Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, so I say that's maybe enough of this set of old white dudes for now. What kind of thing is a fictional character then? What differentiates Count Vronsky from any handsome cavalry officer of the Russian 1870's? And what's the difference between London and Minas Tirith? The world never had nor a Count Vronsky neither a Minas Tirith in it. Before we ask what they are like, we have to confirm their existence. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I don't often feel the need to confirm real people's existence in the same way.

Death of the author

Since the days of Anne Raikes Harding, authors for the most part stopped trying to sell their fiction as reality. Yet I see an increasing amount of people reading fiction like reality. I think one of the examples of this blurring of lines between fictional and real people is evaluating fictional people, and even whole stories, books by the moral standards of our friends, coworkers and family; real people. A good example would be Tolkien's orcs. All orcs are unambiguously evil, they attack any enemy of their leaders. When a whole race of beings is depicted as antagonistic and aggressive, our human brains leap to seek justice for the orcs, for doing the same thing to a group of humans is against our very basic moral codes. Or if it's not, then please leave and set yourself on fire. But! The orcs are fictional! They were created by Tolkien and their background and motivation to be evil stems from reasons within the story. Orcs were created by Morgoth through him torturing and twisting First Age elves. This is in turn supported by the many clues Tolkien worked into his work that sets the inner logic of his story as that of medieval myth and legend.

If we're going ourt of our way to ignore the Death of the Author all stories start yielding didactic, forced allegorical readings of themselves, that not only flattens their potential, but makes reading a profoundly dull enterprise. This is what happens when Tolkien's grandson starts talking about how "Sauron’s orcs are brutalised workers" and "and the desolate moonscapes of Mordor and Isengard are eerily reminiscent of the no man’s land of 1916". He's reading is insightful, but no more valid than any other reader's opinions. Especially because this reading of LOTR outright ignores the efforts of his grandfather to make the books read like some ancient Anglo-Saxon myth. There is a cool book about this, check out Anglo-Saxon Community in J.R.R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings by Deborah Higgens. As YA authors John Green said:

Alas increasingly I'm seeing books not belonging to their readers, but becoming manifestos of their authors morality. In a Bookforum article titled For Goodness' Sake, The self-conscious drama of morality in contemporary fiction, Lauren Oyler asks whether:

The shift to socially conscious art and criticism Molly Fischer termed “the Great Awokening” has meant most books are judged on everything except aesthetic terms, and the frantic discussions about separating the art from the artist that reappeared as part of the #MeToo movement ask: Is it OK to like a book written by a bad person?

Or indeed, is it acceptable to enjoy a book that has morally objectionable material in it? This thread on tumblr proved a goldmine for collecting opinions from all sides. There are also discussion on reddit here and here. There are of course special subjects like the heavy historical residue of punishing lgbtq+ characters etc. where this dynamic is different. Book Riot made a short video on that subject to help discern misunderstandings.

The nonexistence datum

Philosophy calls the odd way of the nonexistence of fictional characters the nonexistence datum, a name that is not only great at being a metaphysical concept but would also be excellent as a name for any emerging punk band. Approached by an ontological reading of the above, one concludes that the made-up people destroying each other don't exist, so looking for them and demanding they change their flawed ways is useless. This is the stance of fictional antirealist. If you read fiction like this, you'll be on the opinion that fictional characters have little impact on the world, as nonexistent things can't have any effects. Fictional realists would read the nonexistence datum metaphysically and say that fictional characters have in their nature that they don't exist. This stance credits fictional characters with much more power over us. Depending on your stance of the existence of fictional characters, you might read a book vastly differently than another.

"Realists have always been fascinated by the fact that there are sentences in language that seem to commit one to fictional entities. Antirealists have instead insisted that such appearances are deceptive: whenever a sentence seems to commit one to fictional entities, one can always provide a paraphrase which has the same truth-conditions as the original sentence but is not so committed. Realists in turn try to show either that those paraphrases are inadequate or that there are still further sentences for which no adequate paraphrases can be found. Antirealists will reply that, despite appearances, these sentences can also be paraphrased in noncommittal terms; and so the game goes on."

Should there be any existing fictional characters, there are various theories competing to describe their existence. I don't wish to summarise these, I'd just rather illustrate one to show the scope of the problem. Possibilism teaches that although Count Vronsky does not exist in this world, he might exist in some other possible world. The problem with this is that there might be a lot of possible worlds with various Count Vronskys that are just mildly different. Because we don't know whether Count Vronsky likes pineapples or not, there might be one universe where he does and one where he doesn't. This problem sets fictional characters apart from real people. Real people are full individuals, while fictional characters only have that one side of them flashed out, that their authors thought important to create. Just because a hot Russian cavalry officer from the 1870's was like Count Vrosnky, it doesn't mean it was him! David Lewis would accept Count Vronsky to exist if he was in a world where Count Vronsky is fact and the a person would have all of Count Vronsky's properties, but others go deeper. Meinong has reserves a way of non-spatiotemporal being that would be suitable for fictional characters. This way, Count Vronsky although cannot exist a same way a lamp post can, but he is possession of all of his properties as well as the property to like pineapples or not. There is a vast variety of theories about the metaphysics of fictional characters, and each and every one results in a different level of influence ascribed to the character.

Conclusion

I firmly believe that one of the greatest property of fiction is its readiness to be interpreted in various different ways. Authors write with their reader's critical thinking in mind. Every book lays down its rules in its first page and continues to do so throughout. Not following these rules and prioritising paratext and abandoning the inherently odd position of fictional characters in favour of a simpler, real-life experience is draining the potential out of fiction. To demonstrate this, I'll look at the first sentences of Anna Karenina, as I've used Vronsky as an example before.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

If you know nothing about the reforms of Tzar Alexander II, nothing about the life of Leo Tolstoy this single sentence still provides a great deal of insight into what lies ahead in the novel. There's going to be a story about families, their fortunes, and there's going to be wit aplenty. The second sentence already talks about an extramarital affair, foreshadowing the trajectory of the plot:

“Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.”

If you know about Tolstoy's life, this knowledge of his unhappy and asymmetrical marriage will seep into your understanding. You'll read both the theme of disintegrating marriages and the character of Levin vastly differently. And when you read Levin as autobiographical, you'll read him as a real man, and the properties of Tolstoy the authors, and Levin the character will become fused and confused, making many much more interesting readings impossible. And that's not something that the text itself supports.

Bibliography

Higgens, D. (2014). Anglo-Saxon Community in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. London: Oloris Publishing.

Kroon, F., Voltolni A. (2018). Fictional Entities. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fictional-entities/#Poss [Accessed 8 June 2020].

Smith, K. (2019). The censor and the pen: investigating the stark dilemma for booksellers. The Bookseller, Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/feature/censor-and-pen-investigating-stark-dilemma-booksellers-1088186 [Accessed 8 June 2020].

Oyler, L. (2020). For Goodness’ Sake, The self-conscious drama of morality in contemporary fiction. Bookforum. Available at: https://www.bookforum.com/print/2702/the-self-conscious-drama-of-morality-in-contemporary-fiction-24022 [Accessed 8 June 2020].

Tolkien, J.R.R. (2016). The Lord of the Rings. London: Harper Collins.

Tolstoy, L. (2013). Anna Karenina. London: Penguin Classics.

Tolkien, S. (2007).Tolkien’s grandson on how WW1 inspired The Lord of the Rings. BBC Culture. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161223-tolkiens-grandson-on-how-ww1-inspired-the-lord-of-the-rings [Accessed 8 June 2020].