Hiya conscious peoples!
I just wanted to put my project proposal down in a hard blog entry for y'all to read. (And what better place than right here?) Basically I'm going to be executing the idea I was talking about last class. I'm going to be writing a surreal short piece of fiction from the first-person perspective of a strange man as he goes through a crisis.
Basically I'm interested in different perception. The strange mind. How does that surreal brain perceive things differently? As we learned earlier in the semester, people impose their ideas when perceiving an object, so how different will the qualia be in the unique, surreal brain?
I'm hoping that I can make clear what's going on--because I can't come out and tell the reader what's "really" happening. No one's consciousness has cliffnotes that explain to you why things are coming out different than you expect it. I feel this story will be a lot like Lauren Slater's Lying--and surrealism is like autobiographical lies--in the way that you know that both have a falseness about them. However, I feel they both capture the true nature of what's going on with the experience.
Surrealism is a figurative method. You can't point at something and say that didn't happen because it'd be useless to do so. That world is what it is, but you can still get the idea of what's going on. Basically I hope I entertain y'all with this.
Comments (4)
Your idea definitely sounds interesting, I'm just curious about the specifics. Like you said you can't give too much of the story away, but what exactly do you mean by "crisis?" I mean thats such a broooaaad term - are we talking emotional? physical?
Also, make sure that you don't start falling back on the whole surrealistic idea too much. It might give you too much freedom, in that you can write pretty much any scenario even if it doesn't really make any sense because it's all surrealistic (please read that with a snooty british accent)
Well definitely sounds cool, good luck with that...oh and EUROPE ROOOOOOOCKS (read that in a high pitched 80's hair metal growl)
Posted by Arielle | November 22, 2007 9:06 PM
Posted on November 22, 2007 21:06
Hi John. I say go for it.
As you do, though, I think you should articulate for yourself a very clear conception of the disorder your narrator suffers from. Do some research into the possibilities, choose one that suits your purposes, because of its symptoms, and be sure you depict those symptoms accurately and effectively.
Of course, writing a surrealist piece gives you quite a bit of aesthetic license. Still, you should know the rules before you break them.
It's always a good goal to entertain! But be sure there is also an intellectual payoff. (I'm not suggesting there wouldn't be.)
This is all pretty abstract. If you want to talk through ideas in more concrete terms, you can bring a piece of the project by my office .
Posted by Jason Tougaw | November 23, 2007 9:20 AM
Posted on November 23, 2007 09:20
The clip said the video was no longer available. I bet I'm definitely missing out.
I also am wondering if I'm following your idea correctly...
You say you're going to follow a surreal mind, which is very very cool... and quite a challenge to take (hats off), but are you thinking of using a well known surrealistic figure to be the vessel of your idea... kind of like the essay written from Grendel's point of view centuries after Beowulf?
Posted by Valerie | November 26, 2007 8:39 PM
Posted on November 26, 2007 20:39
Hi, John!
Even though I'm not in your group, I'd like to read the story you come up with. I'm not sure how you mean to approach the surrealistic mind, though. If you had a character suffering from some known problem, you could research that problem and use that to define your character's perceptions. But "suffering" from--or simply imbued with surrealism? How can you project from the inside of that? Whatever you plan, it sounds really challenging, and I want to see where you go with this idea.
Posted by Lucy | December 9, 2007 9:44 PM
Posted on December 9, 2007 21:44