Generic Considerations

Gareth Jelley · 24 Apr 2003, 13:14 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: "Gareth Jelley" <gjelley at btopenworld.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Generic Considerations
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 14:14:55 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3305 at digest.urth.net>
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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <katbarx at hotmail.com>

> Can you show me a fictive universe which maps exactly against the real?
>
> If so, how can you know it does?

But there are differing degrees of 'mapping', if you see what I mean. I
highly 'realist' or 'naturalistic' narrative like an Old Norse saga is going
to map its fictive world far more closely to what it knows as the 'real'
world than other narratives that have no interest in being at realistic or
naturalistic...

Clearly, you can never have a completely 'real' representation of a world in
a narrative (whether it be a fictional or non-fictional narrative for that
matter) because it will always be a 'representation' of the thing, not the
thing itself; but clearly some fictions are trying far harder to map onto
the real world than others...

Best Wishes,

G.

--=20

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