Wednesday, September 19, 2012

metafiction

I saw an interesting movie this past weekend The Words.
This is a metafiction film. Here, by metafiction, I mean fiction about fiction, or more specifically, fiction which refers to or takes as its subject fictional writing and its conventions.

In a nutshell, here's the plot: a famous author, Hammond, reads portions of his novel to the public. Hammond's novel is about an author, Jansen, publishing a novel via a circuitous route. Jansen's novel is the story of yet another author, referred to as "the old man."
Are you confused yet? :) Actually, the levels within levels aspect of it really reminded me of the 2010 movie Inception, which had dreams within dreams within dreams.

Suffice it to say, I enjoyed this. Of course, writers are predisposed to like movies about writers. One of the neatest aspects of it was the concept that writers might prefer their fictions to their reality. I know I like some of my fictional characters better than some of the real characters I know. :)

Can reality ever live up to our imagination?

Or, put another way, are the sacrifices an author makes for their art worth it? At what point has a writer given up too much of his/her real life?

What do you choose: fiction or reality?

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