Tuesday, January 07, 2003

Calvino, Rushdie, and the Truth of Fantasy It is true I have always claimed to be a prevaricator, so perhaps it is not surprising that I find the intricate fantasy worlds of others fascinating (no, this is not going to be a discussion of _Lord of the Rings_). The new collection of essays by Rushdie insisted I read it this weekend, despite having a plethora of other more practical things to accomplish, and a delightful banquet it was, a feast of Saturnalian proportions. Some fiction writers write the dullest non-fiction, and some non-fiction writers write deadly dull fiction. With Rushdie, the reader doesn't even experience the smallest speed bump as he moves from one to the other. I love books that make me ask, How did he DO that?? How does he manage to make me appreciate the metaphoric merits of "The Wizard of Oz" (the move) when I have never been able to even tolerate the movie? It must be his perspective. He is definitely standing at a different viewpoint than one usually gets observations from. Perhaps how he manages to make me appreciate the movie is that he discusses exactly what my six-year-old soul knew with every fiber of my being about this movie, and what all the adults around me entirely missed: This is a scary movie. It is about how dreams die and life gets sucked out of adults, and how children and small animals are at the mercy of adults who lie and take their anger out on you. It's about forces of chaos and finding out that your heroes are just con artists with fancier props. Don't worry, Rushdie manages to make this sound optimistic. I don't know how, it's a mystery. Anyway, for some reason my not-entirely-caffeinated brain reminded me of Rushdie's writing while reading Winterson's review of a collection of autobiographical writings by Italo Calvino. Calvino wrote the truest and the funniest introduction to a book I have ever read. Well, okay, it is extremely funny if you are the sort of person who thinks all the books are looking at her whenever she walks into a really good bookstore, and it is the introduction to _If On a Winter Night a Traveler_, and I thnk you can find it on the Internet. Winterson discusses the truthfulness of Calvino's fantasy, how the slightly-skewed perspective of his fantasy worlds make us see the realties which are true in all worlds. The review can be found here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-516841,00.html or follow the link from one of my favorite blogs, Blog of a Bookslut http://www.bookslut.com/index.htm. 8:18:28 AM    comment []