Finding soul in fiction
How often do you read a fictional story and think ‘Yes, that is me, how I feel, how I am’, as if a fictional character, situation or story speaks to your soul and puts into words the questions about life, love, mortality or soul that you have been wrestling with.
It’s as if you have found a soul connection, an Anam Cara, in a fictional world.
For me, like so many others, my first fictional soul friend was Jo in Little Women, with her rebellious, contrary streak, her ability to get it wrong, her struggles for, and against, conformity and, of course, her love of books! All spoke to my adolescent soul.
Now, many years and many books later, it is Tove Jannson’s The Summer Book that resonates deeply. A novel that is almost a collection of short stories, the book follows the daily life of 6 year old Sophia and her grandmother on a remote island over one summer. The relationship between the aching, and often cranky, grandmother and her precocious, confused, grieving granddaughter speaks to both my child and adult souls. Evocative descriptions of landscape and deceptively simple dialogue explore questions around death, grief, fear and love. This is how I want to write about soul.
Sometimes it is the beauty of the words themselves that touch my soul, either in poetry or in poetically written prose. This is Happiness by Niall Willams is a book that makes me pause on every page to savour the words that have stirred my soul. I could give you so many examples but here is just one short extract:
It was where, when darkness fell, it fell absolutely, and when you went outside the wind sometimes drew apart the clouds and you stood in the revelation of so many stars you could not credit the wonder and felt small in body as your soul felt enormous. (p.33)
Isn’t that wonderful!
I wonder if and where you have found a connection to a fictional Anam Cara? Please do share your thoughts in the comments.
While I continue to find creative non-fiction and self- help books enlightening and thought-provoking, I find it is often the stories within such books that speak to my soul. So, for the moment anyway, I have moved away from non-fiction into a season of writing fictional short stories, exploring issues around finding and living from your authentic soul. A transition from soul seeking to soul stories, I suppose.
One of the reasons for this move was the dilemma faced by many memoir and non-fiction writers: how to tell my story honestly and authentically without fracturing relationships or friendships, or hurting others, who may, often unintentionally, have injured my developing soul. By moving into fiction, blending my own and others’ stories and creating characters and plots that echo, but are not from, my own life, I hope to give a voice to those whose souls may be flawed and wounded but who continue their journey to a place of living authentically in tune with their souls.
I wonder how you feel about this dilemma? How do you address it in your writing or other creative output? I would love to hear your thoughts and read your words.
Until next time, my friend.
Miranda