Of “Android Karenina,” Content, and the Ability to Imagine…

“Imitate form, not content. The tendency to imitate form and not content seems to relate directly to talent.”

—Peter Selgin, 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers

The present world of fiction sees many young writers interweaving the works of previous writers into the young author’s new creation.

I recently read an article about a young German writer who won an award for her work that had used large excerpts of a previous writer’s work in young novelist’s creation.

The younger novelist justified her verbatim use of the previous work by saying that it was not the center.

Rather, she explained, it composed a small fraction of the work she had written as a whole.

I wondered about that particularly in light of the new round of fiction that involves the re-writing of classics from a new frame and genre.

Android Karenina.

Jane Slayre.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters.

Little Women and Werewolves.

Mansfield Park and Mummies.

The stories essentially follow the narrative lines of the original classics, but with the added twist of science or speculative fictive aspects.

Only time will determine whether this new way of creating novels will take hold and establish an entirely new brand of writing and imagining, or re-imagining the work of a previous writer.

That these timeless novels were chosen upon which to build a new imaging of the work speaks to the immense creativity and talent that went into to crafting them.

Money certainly plays its role.

A pre-established plotline and well-developed cast of characters the time required for imagining as entertaining a story by far cuts the time of craft in more than half of what is demanded to reproduce a narrative of equal or greater quality.

This presents a bargain for publishers.

But what of the artist, the writer and more importantly her or his process of creating?

And what of our ability to imagine, create and establish a brand new world never before envisioned by another from the unique perspective of that only one person, or one author can hold?

While the publisher’s wealth lies in books that entertain and sell, the writer’s treasure rests in our ability to imagine, revise and hone.

One could argue that this is what those of this new brand of fiction are doing, or at least aiming at.

Perhaps.

And yet I wonder of our lack of patience, or rather the need for immediate gratification, how new computer technologies are affecting our abilities to wait and allow ideas to germinate and gestate?

I have heard it stated that long and intense usage of the Internet alters the way our brain operates.

Would using the Internet have allowed Einstein to deliver us The Theory of Relativity?

And if so, how might he have envisioned and proposed it with the aid of present computer technology?

The questions we must ask as writers, artists, and some would say shamans of our culture, rests no is not so much how the lightening speed at which we can now deliver ourselves certain physical and virtual phenomena changes us.

Rather how is our way of experiencing ourselves and other shifting and changing in light of the fact that so much rests at our disposal with but the touch of a button, or as with Apple’s newly release iPad, screen?

And in that the way we perceiving life, living and relating to other is being altered by these new developments, who are?

Once again, I turn to story, and writing, telling of my experiences, digging deep within the recesses of my thoughts.

We live in an age wherein we travel at seems almost the speed of light.

Our awareness of the moment-to-moment experience and the ability to remain completely present to that is not only fleeting, but also priceless.

It is but a gift that we have words to capture and preserve it for others to share, identify with, and perhaps, just maybe gain clarity upon their own reality.