The Fiction Taboo

http://blog.lavacocktail.com/2009/09/06/the-fiction-taboo.aspx

The Fiction Taboo
by
Jaye Beldo
lavacocktail.com

In our tumultuous age, there is a lower tolerance level for ambiguity and uncertainty. Such an unfortunate pathology certainly figures into the equation of what is marketable in regards to published material and the fiction genre is currently bearing the brunt of this, scapegoated into a netherworld of indelible insignificance. In response, most publishers are now shunning inclusion of fiction titles, opting for more sale friendly "nonfiction" or "creative nonfiction" titles. The latter is a laughable genre in itself, "creative" being nothing more than a euphemism for flat out lying.

One of the original intents of fiction was to safely import messages to the public via bypassing authoritarian scrutiny. Writers such as Jonathan Swift deftly wove his Gargantuan tales in a way to convey the folly and hypocrisy of an impending Catholic monarchy without losing his Lilliputian head. Jules Verne also was a master at encoding his fiction, esp.with allusions to the Masonic manipulations of the powers that be and also escaped punishment as his references were much too subtle, intertwined and rarified for the brute willed globalists he sought to shed light on through his novels.

During my 10+ year stint as a book reviewer, I have helplessly watched the disappearance of poetic, inspired and authentically transformative works. Instead, books which amount to nothing more than a dull litany of declarative sentences, serving to bolster the writer's importance but leaving us all painfully deprived of a more beneficial dimension once sustained through metaphor ( a word which originally meant "to carry across") have become all too common. My primary reason for going into book reviewer retirement stems from this retarding phenomena. None of these works lead to what is called "direct knowledge" fostered by an intuitive awareness evoked via poetic techniques. ( I highly recommend delving into J. Nigro Sansonese book, The Body of Myth because the author shows how Greek myths were used to evoke and sustain meditative states)

In light of this literal plight, the fiction taboo needs to be immediately lifted because relegating this once vital genre to the ghetto fringes is quite detrimental in a number of ways. Such a downplaying of fiction encourages more and more literalism-something we need less of considering the dire consequences of subscribing to the illusion of sanctioned surety as evidenced primarily by determinist fanatics encouraging apocalypse in hopes of what has been written in the bible will come true and secretary of defense Robert M. Gates now forcing Christianity upon troops via biblical fascism.

However, the downplaying of fiction has an even more detrimental effect than encouraging an apocalyptic literalism. It deprives the imaginal plane of the very life force it needs to sustain itself and the muses which inhabit it. The imaginal plane is just as real as the physical plane and one only needs to delve into the work of the Islamic scholar Henry Corbin to gain sufficient understanding of this, esp. his work Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi or a more accessible venue to Corbin's work, Tom Cheetham's The World Turned Inside Out: Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism. Writers such as William S. Burroughs called this realm 'inter-zone' and had considerable success in tapping into it for use in his own fictional works which still pulse with relevant bewilderment.

Yet thanks to the number crunchers dictating what gets airtime in the book market, we are deprived of such wonders as the imaginal plane and are forced bow to a collective mentality which gets more confined, predictable and "factual" the more our planet so desperately tries to open up to a cosmos rife with quantum indeterminancy, accelrated fractal expanse and nonlocal transference of information. Blame it on the "prison warders" but do whatever you can to bring fiction back to life even if you have to brave entry into some bookstore basement to rummage through the dustbin of remaindered titles beckoning to your soul to be experienced.

Jaye Beldo is the author of A Stab in the Light,
available @ http://www.amazon.com/
(C)-2009

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