A Season of Truth

by | Jan 25, 2021 | books | 26 comments

It’s a sunny day here. Looking out the window, I have a crisp, clear view of the trees on my street. Still leafless, they look dull and ordinary, waiting for spring. That’s the truth of it. And that makes me happy. Truth.

I didn’t know how much I valued truth until our country was plunged into a prolonged blizzard of lies. It was disconcerting. We could handle a snow flurry of lies. We were used to that. But a blizzard?

Last week, to my relief, the blizzard flew south. Now we can start to dig ourselves out. Unfortunately, piles of dirty snow will remain along the sides of the road for a long time. And yes, we will always have lies and liars. Each of us, in fact, have been guilty of lying, though we try to be truthful. It’s a common enough failing. There’s a reason one of the the Ten Commandments reminds us not to bear false witness.

You may think it’s strange that I would care so much about truth when I spend my time writing fiction. It’s true, I read mainly fiction; I write fiction. When I was a child, I loved fairy tales and the bedtime stories my dad told me about giants and magic carpets. So how does that compute?

Well, the way I understand it is that fiction has its own brand of truth. The reader knows what to expect. There’s an unspoken agreement between reader and writer: This is fiction, we all understand. It doesn’t tell us to disbelieve our eyes or ignore the advice of experts. It presents us with an entertainment. Within the fiction, though, there is also something true.

Albert Camus puts it this way: “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

And this is how Stephen King explains it: “Good fiction is the truth inside the lie.”

Even fantasy and science fiction have their own particular brands of truth telling. Last year I read Ian McEwan’s science fiction novel, Machines Like Me. It takes place in London in the past, during Margaret Thatcher’s time in office. And yet, it’s a time when artificial intellligence is so advanced that a small number of expensive synthetic humans are being sold to the public. The look and act and think almost exactly like humans. That’s the lie of the story. Everything else in the novel has to correspond with that lie and with reality as we know it. The truth within is how that reality might possibly play out for a young man and his girlfriend, and for the robot.

If you’ve read Machines Like Me, I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

Wishing you all truth.

26 Comments

  1. Pamela

    What an intelligent and fascinating post, Nicki! First, I love the snow/blizzard of lies metaphors in the beginning. There are lies, and then there is fiction. Both are completely different from each other. I have ALWAYS believed that good books of fiction are full of truth. I have a friend who will only read non-fiction because, he says, “books of fiction are just made up things.” Nonono. I try to explain that fiction is based on solid truths. That’s why they’re so “real” and eye-opening. I learn more from fictional stories than any non-fiction. Anyway, I’ve read lots of Ian McEwan books, but not Machines Like Me, so I’m off to get it.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Do any of us know the whole real truth of our own lives? And if we did, would we have the courage to write about it honestly and fully? Maybe. But it’s that difficulty that makes it hard to write both a truthful and an interesting memoir. In a work of fiction, we can write the truth we understand from having observed many people and the way they act.

      Tomorrow I’m posting an interview with an author who recently published a memoir. She has written eight books, but this is her first memoir. She said it’s the hardest thing she’s ever written, and she explains why.

      Reply
  2. Annika Perry

    Nicki, from a gentle serene photo of the beautiful daffodils you sweep us into a thought-provoking essay about lies; the blizzard of them mimicking the weather outside. It is exhausting with all the lies that seem to have become norm in our society and the truth seems ever more obscure. I think fiction has an important role in highlighting the inherent truth in our lives and your two quotes show exactly how this can be achieved. An excellent post … and I think I will return to studying the simplier unsullied truth of nature.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Thank you, Annika. Nature is definitely worth studying. For Valentine’s Day, my daughter sent me the most beautiful bowl of potted succulents and orchids. What a joy to look at it and watch the orchid blossoms open! This weekend all our attention has been captured by our first snow of the year. No matter how many times you’ve seen snow, it’s still seems like a major event.

      Reply
  3. Mabel Kwong

    This is a reflective and truthful post, Nicki. Thank you for sharing such honest thoughts. Truth can always be hard to admit even if we know the the truth. Sometimes it scares us and when we look around at what’s going on, we don’t want to associate ourselves with it. But truth, it is what it is. Love your use of the imagery of snow and blizzards to describe the state of the world. I heard it’s been cold and snowing heaps over there. From your snow photo, it does look cold and hopefully the dirty snow melts away and gets cleaned up in due time. Here in Australia it is summer and warm, but soon winter will be upon us again… Who knows where this year is headed, really. Hope you are doing well. Take care.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Actually, Mabel, we haven’t had any snow at my house this year. I had to use a photo from last year. They’ve had a lot of snow on the east coast of the United States, though.

      Here’s a quote by St. Augustine that I like: If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God.

      Reply
  4. bruce witzel

    So glad too, you have a change of leadership Nicki. I think your US bad blizzard of lies was affecting our own regular snowstorms of lies here in Canada. Speaking of snow, oddly, here at the lake Fran and I haven’t seen a bit of snow yet this year. We don’t usually
    get much here on the west coast, but none at all yet.
    A really wonderful post… Thanks

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Thank you, Bruce.

      It’s amazing how fast COVID is spreading around the world and how hard it is for a country to protect its citizens. I guess we’re also finding how easily attitudes toward things like truth and lies also spread. I’m sorry if we were a bad example for Canada.

      I’m surprised to hear that you haven’t had any snow yet. We haven’t had any either here in Edmonds, WA, but you’re farther north. I had to use a snow photo from last year.

      Reply
  5. caroline reay

    What is shocking in today’s world is how a lie, repeated often enough and by the “right” person can become accepted truth, even if there’s a mountain of evidence to disprove it

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Psychologists have been trying to explain this to us this past year. Still it’s hard to understand. Even more shocking is a study I read about recently. They found that if you post something false on social media, it will get more clicks than a true post.

      Reply
  6. Derrick John Knight

    The blizzard is a fine metaphor. I read much of McEwan’s early work but ultimately found him rather unpleasant

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Sometimes I remain faithful to writers I like, and sometimes I lose interest in them or find they no longer fit my taste. I’ve run into a couple of books like that this past year. Unfortunately, I bought the books before I found I didn’t like them any more.

      Reply
  7. Ally Bean

    I’ve not read Machines Like Me, but it sounds similar to Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was a novel that made me stop and think about reality, how it is crafted and what we choose to believe it is.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I read Never Let Me Go, too. Ishiguro is a wonderful writer. In this novel, he told a sad, disgusting story in his trademark understated way. I agree with you that it really makes one stop and think about reality.

      Reply
  8. Autumn

    I always hated the dirty snow. Great analogy.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Isn’t it funny how snow starts out so pure and beautiful and ends up dirty and unsightly in some places. Even the parking lots in ski resorts. I’m not a big skier, but I really enjoyed cross-country skiing at my uncle’s cabin in the mts. near Cle Elum, WA where we skied over pristine snowy landscapes.

      Reply
  9. JUDITH WORKS

    Let’s hope the lies are gone from public discourse.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Me, too, Judith. We depend on accurate information in everything we do.

      Reply
  10. nrhatch

    Great analogies, Nicki . . . especially to the dirty snow left behind.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Of course, the dirty snow will eventually melt. We’re still waiting to see what will happen with all those who were influenced by the Season of Lies.

      Reply
  11. L. Marie

    Nicki, what a thought-provoking post! Everything built on a lie eventually falls.

    I agree that fiction needs to have an authenticity to it. I haven’t read Machines Like Me, but will look it up. It sounds fascinating.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I love that, Linda: “Everything built on a lie eventually falls.” I think you’re right from a historical point of view. I hope it won’t take too long.

      You might like Machines Like Me. Some of the British readers had some complaints about the political history he changed. But I thought the human problems he explored, and even the problems of an almost human machine, were clever and credible and well worth exploring.

      Reply
  12. Kate Crimmins

    I am grateful the blizzard of lies era is over (although I hear the Republicans in congress are starting to whitewash what happened). It was a constant background noise that created negativity. Your snow is beautiful. We have had one snow in December and it melted within a few days. It’s an unusually mild winter here although we are now in a cold snap.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Sorry if my photo was misleading. That was from last year, the best snow photo I had. We’ve also had a mild winter, no snow at all at my place.

      Last I heard, Trump had told more than 30,500 lies while in office.

      Reply
      • Marta

        I’m very surprised someone had the time to keep count ;D

        Reply
        • Nicki Chen

          The first one who started counting as far as I know was a Canadian reporter from the Toronto Star, Daniel Dale. He thought no one else was calling Trump out for his lies, so he tweeted lists of the lies, and they were so popular that he put them in articles in his newspaper. They were the most popular thing in the paper, read by people from all over the world. Eventually, the Washington Post started keeping their own list.

          Reply

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