Dear reader,
This month I have questions for you to ponder; questions that arose during a recent meeting. I’d love to hear your views and may sometimes, just occasionally, use controversial examples simply to spark a debate and cause a reaction!! My aim is not offend but get you thinking, so please let me hear your views on the following questions:
1. Are novels written from the point of view (POV) of a protagonist who drastically transgresses social boundaries acceptable, indeed enjoyable?
2. And, is there therefore a story that shouldn’t be told because its transgressions?
The former question arose after one of our members wrote a story in which the central character is a rapist. We were invited to feel sympathy for him as we follow his story, but this issue raised several debates. Clearly the subject alone is an uncomfortable topic and because we are invited to sympathise with this man the issue becomes all the more contentious. Let’s consider this further…
When we read a piece of fiction, in-order to keep us going to the end, we look for a fragment of familiarity, a link between the character’s story and our own predicaments/experiences. A ‘hook’ must be formed if we are to give a dam about the conclusion of the story. Take the rapists tale for example. From his perspective his immoral, sadistic situation is explicable and therefore acceptable because of the treatment he has suffered at the hands of his own parents, but can we commit to caring for him because of this? Who would look for an element of similarity in his position and our own, and why would you want to? If we can’t care can we continue to read a story written from his perspective?
Let us consider another foul character: Grenouille in Perfume. This man, a rank, immoral, repugnant figure born from hate, raised with loathing, possesses a divine skill; he is able to manipulate emotion and turn the hate of others into love through his fine blending of scents. He is a murderer who commits heinous crimes in an attempt to the bottle a heavenly scent. On reading the novel I experienced such negative feelings towards this foul creature that I couldn’t complete the book – Why, I asked a friend, would I want to relate to him in any way? And, if I cannot relate to him, if I don’t care about him one tiny microbe, why would I follow his story?
What IS bizarre about this discussion however, is that I could watch the film, also titled Perfume.
Why?
There is of course a great difference between watching a film and reading a book. Our imagination must work for us as we translate/interpret the words on the page into the pictures in our minds and the emotions form within us; a book needs us to care for a central character, to care about the story being given to us; the characters must give us a reason to turn the page. If we make the decision to continue, and that central character is immoral, we may begin to feel complicit with the character’s actions. Viewing a film, however, takes our imagination away from us and it becomes a more sociable experience; the film is portrayed through the director’s point of view. It is a shared compliance. Many films raise uncomfortable issues, this is a given, it is the POV conveyed that IS the issue. I can think of several controversial films that feature immoral, sadistic and evil central protagonists. We can watch the story of these social deviants but we may never choose to read a book in which the main POV is that of the social deviant because we need to care about a protagonist in some way.
Take the following films for example: These are a small sample of films that raise controversial issues and have immoral/sadistic/evil central protagonists. In some cases they are considered unwatchable, but on the whole many find them acceptable food for their eyes:
The Clockwork Orange (Graphic rape and violence – I will never watch this, ever. The poster is enough to make me hide under the duvet)
The Terrorist (A wonderful Indian film which manipulates emotions from the start and we DO care for the central character despite the controversial subject matter)
Blow (Romanticised drug dealing)
We need to talk about Kevin (I ‘half-read’ the novel as it was uncomfortable reading. The disconnection that existed between mother and child filled me with fear and upset my maternal feelings)
Badlands, Natural Born Killers (Matricide/Patricide- In my opinion NBK is brutality over substance)
Compliance (Only viewed an hour go – extremely uncomfortable viewing that raises questions regarding authority and obedience – no-body would want to read a book written from the sadistic prank callers POV, trust me!)
We may watch these films willingly, but then we do not follow the actions of the protagonists through their eyes. We do not need to find a logic or a link with their reasoning’s or predicaments.
Perhaps one of the most controversial films I have viewed is The Woodsman; the POV is given through the male lead, a peadophile, recently released from prison. Throughout the film we observe him constantly battling his ‘disease’ in the knowledge that his actions are indisputably vile and ‘wrong’. Yet, amidst the sense of stomach churning repulsion, an element of sympathy develops through the sensitivity in which the film is made and the battle we witness within him. We want him to fight his feelings, we want him to overcome his ‘affliction’, to find redemption and find a new ‘normality’ that we can accept and live with. Clearly, most ‘normal’ people cannot link to peadophilia in any way, but a link exists here over right and wrong and most people can associate to the battle of good over evil. If we were to read a book with this same figure as the central protagonist however, then our imaginations would have to work for us, details omitted from the film may have to be included and we would struggle through the text with hatred and sickness. This is not a POV that anyone would want to relate to, so completing the book may be difficult.
When we read a book we relate to a central character and this carries us through the text and the situations encounter. We all love a good villain, but when that villain transgresses the boundaries of society, whether we feel a tinge of sympathy or not may be something that you would never own to. If we relate to that character then we are, by proxy, fictionally guilty of the crimes he/she commits. If we continue to the end reading from the POV of a character such as this, we may never stop analysing our own sense of morality! Perhaps this is because that when we read a novel, a little of something remains with us; maybe just for an hour, a day or even for a lifetime. Some characters become our friends that live within us and enrich our lives through that close fictional bond which is formed when we read a great story and meet well rounded, believable characters.
That, in a rather rambling, venting kind of way, brings us back to the second question I mentioned in the opening above: So, is there therefore a story that shouldn’t be told?
What do you think?
It is true that there is little considered taboo in the Western literary world; there are many POVs that now make acceptable reading. So, which POVs have yet to be a focus in the literary world? What new territory are we left with that makes acceptable reading?
‘Some’ points of view, such as the ones discussed above will never be, we hope, acceptable to the majority of the world, however, is there any ground yet to be covered that will be acceptable? Are we missing a niche literary market?
Well, at the meeting in which we discussed taboo points of view, we also discussed the reading zeitgeist which seems to exist for ‘mummy/soft-porn’ books (50 Shades etc) and werewolf/vampire/zombie books. The group have thus invented a new genre in which we believe we will make ourselves ‘A-list’ authors rolling in pits of money: the first project the group are collaborating on is titled Homosexual Zombies (my husband’s original idea) this will be published by ‘NibbleMeNow’ books in June 2013; the second novel is titled Spanking Werewolves (John’s idea) and it will be published by ‘HairInMyTeeth’ in August 2013. You can download an excerpt of both for free on Kindle in July.
Happy Reading!
Oh, and please do buy/download a copy of The Hysteria1 Anthology (it does actually exist! Link here). It contains my short-listed story and raises money for the Hysterectomy Association.
I’m keen to hear your views, write soon !! xxx
PS: Shame on you that typed 'Spanking' in to your search bar and found yourself reading this blog!
