Plato's Cave: Truth & Reality

Reading Plato's Cave a few times brings up several points for reflection on the relationship between truth and reality, two words that when thought about in passing seem to mean almost the same thing, but when considered as separate entities truly have an immense gulf between them. 

For the prisoners in the cave, the shadows moving across the wall are their reality. There is nothing else for them to see, they have no knowledge of the world awaiting them outside. They are content in their ignorance; they have no desire to expand their worldview because their present situation is all they know. As Plato says, "the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images." When a prisoner is released, his entire world is shifted. He yearns for the comfort of his previous reality; he shies away from the truth of real objects in the sunlight. The sun blinds him, so he is initially unable to see what his instructor tells him is reality, and is confused when he is told that the shadows he once saw, his old reality, are only an illusion cast upon the cave wall. Eventually, he becomes accustomed to the outside world and its truth, and pities the prisoners in the cave who see themselves as lords over the shadows, "conferring honours" amongst themselves based on who can pick out the shapes the fastest, and who can tell which one will come next, etc. Their honors are empty because they are seeing nothing, and only the escaped prisoner understands that. Yet when he returns his eyes can't see in the darkness, as adjusted to the sun as they are, and it is the prisoners who see him as the wrong one because he can no longer see reality as they do, and they fear that kind of fate; they condemn it. 

Based on this reading, it would seem that while reality is the state in which we live, our mindset and what we believe, truth is how things really are, and can only be seen when we put aside ignorance and embrace it. We can choose to escape truth by changing our realities, and we can trap ourselves in a certain reality by choosing to ignore truth. In the same way we fear things we do not understand, we may initially reject truth for the familiar comfort of our old reality, but in the light of truth reality changes. 

Brave New World

After reading Brave New World I've become quite fascinated with dystopian novels. It's very interesting to read about societies so controlled and different from my own, and the psychology behind it - it really makes sense, although it could never be right. It's also incredible when you realize how easily people can be conditioned. We want  patterns. We hate responsibility. To have all that taken away, to operate at a level best suited to you, with minimal attachments - some people would probably love a chance like that.

"Oh, I love it when the kids play their sex games together." (IT'S FROM THE BOOK OKAY)

What struck me about Brave New World was how ahead of his time Huxley was. I felt like I was reading something so closely contemporary (this is kind of a side note, not really cohesive to the point.

Novels such as these hit on interests we sometimes bury so deep we don't even realize they're there: the desire to give up control, to fit in with familiar and comforting patterns, to belong to a cohesive whole. when we read about it, we are able to experience it without actually experiencing it, and that gives us enough excitement.

Then afterwards, we can breathe a little sigh of relief that's it's just fiction. Then we start to get a little paranoid about just how much that pesky government's hiding....

...and he's judging you SO hard right now.

A Wind in the Door

I love Madeleine L'Engle. In fact, I remember crying on September 6, 2007 when I found out she'd passed away.

I can't say what it is that I love so much about her - perhaps it's the way she makes it look so easy, or her gentle and virtuous characters that are such a pleasure to read. Perhaps it all began on that first line of A Wrinkle in Time: 


"It was a dark and stormy night." That stuck with me for seven years.

"Weeeee!"

When I pick up A Wind in the Door, it's always lovingly. I think one of the things I love most about L'Engle is her ability to introduce fantastic elements so frankly as to make the reader feel as if nothing alarming is going on. It's a trait I greatly admire, and one I hope to someday emulate.

She can write anything, and the reader will never one put the book down, brow creased in confusion, saying, "what?" On top of that, she never once has to justify herself. She gives you a character, and says only what she has to, and by the end of the encounter you feel as if you've known them for years. It's amazing.

On top of that, her prose is so smooth, so effortlessly fluid, that I am able to immerse myself completely in the novel and it takes no effort at all. That is mainly what this post is about - I suposse I should've retitled it "Tips for Good Writing, according to the works of the Late Ms. L'Engle."

Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the Twilight Syndrome

There's a weird trend going on in YA fantasy these days, one that gets more and more troubling with each book I read.

It starts when I pick up an awesome-looking title at the bookstore/library/St. Mark's High School, room 331. The premise looks fascinating, the book jacket enticing, and sure enough, the first 100 pages fly by with a breeze. There have been so many new YA titles coming out these past few years, what with Harry Potter and the Twilight saga already collecting dust on the shelves. 

These books start out promising enough. A strong, usually female main character with great looks, killer attitude, and a mysterious world to discover takes the stage, and I'm more than ready to hang on for the ride. The problem starts when I hit about a third of the way through, when the male protagonist enters the scene. 

Suddenly, this isn't a fantasy adventure about a strong-willed character anymore. It's a love story. Just a love story. I've dubbed it the Twilight Syndrome, personally, although I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone else hasn't already been using that term, since I can't be the only one who feels this way. 

This exact phenomenon happened while I was reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I absolutely loved it for the first 200 pages - the novel is lush with detail, and Karou is a fresh and entertaining protagonist. Even the setting, in the heart of Prague, added to the mystery and flavor of the book. But once Akiva, her seraphim lover, enters the book, it all goes downhill from there. The plot is almost entirely forgotten as they fall in love in less that a day for inexplicable reasons other than "heat passing between them" whenever they touched - 

- and did I mention they met as Akiva was trying to kill her?

Yes, Karou falls head-over-heels in love with her would-be killer that she narrowly escaped from after suffering major wounds at the tip of his sword, mainly because she becomes captivated by his "otherwordly beauty" and the strange magnetic pull she feels between them. This is where I begin to lose patience. There is no development of romance, no natural progression of a relationship. There is no real love in these books, just automatic attraction that is frankly unhealthy. These supernatural male megahunks turn female protagonists into piles of goo and it's a little painful to read. 

I can't help but feel as if these books send the message that the real purpose for a girl is to stop everything once a hot guy enters their lives. Karou's family is missing, possibly dead, but she forgets all of that as soon as she meets Akiva? Please. 

The worst part is that I keep seeing this pattern repeated over and over again in YA fantasy. And I'm constantly searching for something to help me keep faith in this genre. 

The Giver - the gift that keeps on giving

Last night I stumbled across the magic of New Castle County's new digital library system, and I honestly can't remember the last time I was truly impressed and excited by something so simple as a library. Basically now I can download books from the library right onto my computer and Kindle! It's awesome! With this new power at my disposal, I decided to check out a book that I hadn't read in years: Lois Lowry's The Giver. I was drawn back to The Giver because I'd recently read the dystopian novel Brave New World and started a YA book called Matched (which was so horrible that it inspired me to begin writing my own dystopian novel just to get it published and spite the author), and found myself wanting more of this world. 

"My name is Jonas, I'm carrying the wheel. Thanks for all you've shown us, this is how we feel."

Honestly, The Giver is a classic. The second read-through was quick; I devoured it in little more than a few hours. What was magic in The Giver is the flawless buildup of tension; Lowry's mastery of slowly unfolding Jonas's world piece by piece and letting the reader's horror ever so slowly mount is a fantastic thing to behold. I gasped when I was supposed to, and cried when I was supposed to. The emotions of love and understanding that we all strive for, the feeling of connectivity that we find so naturally in our day-to-day lives is a striking thing when it is completely removed, as in the environment of Jonas's community. Lowry has achieved a great thing, in forcing the reader to take a step back and with startling clarity realize what it is that makes us all human - caring and emotion - while at the same time seeing the dangers in doing so: the risk that comes with sharing all of ourselves with others, of giving our hearts and feelings away, and entrusting another with them. The danger of choice; of making the wrong choice. The danger of failure. But just as happiness is necessary, as is suffering; it is in this balance that we truly appreciate the beauty of life. 

"Giver," Jonas suggested, "you and I don’t need to care about the rest of them."
The Giver looked at him with a questioning smile. Jonas hung his head. Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.

A journal entry: Sea-Fever (post recitation)

It's interesting, the difference between reading a poem and reciting it for others. At first I found myself dreading the whole thing, so I picked a date several weeks after the assignment of the poems so that I wouldn't ave to deal with it (for a while, at least). As it came down to just a few days away, I began to really practice. I was amazed at how the poem really came alive to me. I watched videos of it set to song, and lost myself in the rhythm of the words. Some poems, I think, are better on the page, where the sounds only truly make sense in the imagination of one's own mind. Not this poem. "Sea-Fever" is a song to be sung, a story to be shared, a lyric to be held in one's heart. I'm glad I picked it, because it has become a part of me. I can't think of it without hearing crashing waves, smelling salt air, and feeling the ghost of a wild rush in my chest. It's almost like carrying sunlight, knowing this poem. It's a good one to have memorized.

A journal entry: Never Let Me Go

Mr. Frankum handed me Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro yesterday morning, and I didn't put it down until ten o' clock that same night. One of the great things about that book is that it was so deceptive in its presentation - the cover gave nothing away, and neither did the title or the description on the back. It was all very vague. In fact, the entire novel was so controlled that I did not even know really what was going on until I was nearly two-thirds through the novel. What was truly going on crept up on me slowly, like a chill that starts at your feet and seeps down into your bones until you can't stop shivering. I'd say more about it here, but what made the story so beautiful and harrowing was the fact that it was so controlled. Each scene unfolded with such deliberate precision. When I read writing like that, it remins me so much of what makes literature a true art form. There's real patience there, and stark intelligence. One of the recurring pieces of advice I often hear in my experiences with creative writing classes is to take something you admire from each book/short story/what have you and copy it. Not plagiarism, but the technique. The precision with which Ishiguro unleashed each chapter of Never Let Me Go was so powerful. It was deceptively simple in style, and it wasn't until I turned the last page and broke down in tears that I truly appreciated it for everything that it was. When done right, writing can be so moving. This was a masterpiece. I'm not sure what else to say beyond that, just because I'm still in awe over the whole thing. After I read a particularly affecting piece, it takes a few days for everything to sink in, and often a couple weeks to mull it over even more, examining parts that still stick out in my mind, seeing them in new ways and deriving meaning from them. I think this whole ability a good author has, to change a person in this way with something they have created, is what makes writing such a powerful tool. This book asks the questions we hesitate to say out loud. It explores, so gently, the blurred ethics of science and medicine in a way that took my breath away. It's a world not too far from our own, one that is entirely possible. And in a way, it made me realize how much I love the people that I do, and miss them for reasons I can't really explain.