Monday, May 6, 2013

A Highly Calculating Iteration of "It Depends"


Would you read a novel featuring yourself as the protagonist?

Assuming that the author was somehow magically 100% true to my actual psychology, my physicality, my quiddity, then how the hell could I NOT read that novel?  I would be granted the rare ability to perceive myself objectively—as a separate entity—which would show me which character traits I needed to accentuate and which I needed to diminish. 

I shall organize the rest of this post according to the various possible novel formats, and the relative merits of each (as well as the lethal nature of one):   

If it were nonfiction, then I would do any number of unpleasant and/or morally reprehensible things in order to win the condition that it be written in the third person omniscient, with alternating POVs between me and the handful of people in my life whose opinions matter most to me.  Since it has been established that I would be the protagonist, their chapters would as a matter of course focus on their interactions with me, and I would therefore get to find out how they truly felt about me.  Also, the insight I could garner into their psyches would be of invaluable use in teaching me how to most effectively influence them, forge closer relationships with them, and improve their quality of life.  (As sinister as that last sentence may sound, the people whose POVs I would select are all people whom I love to varying degrees, ergo I would not use my unnatural knowledge for evil purposes.)  

However, if I were not allowed to learn anything through reading about myself—for instance if the novel were going to be limited to my own first person POV—then a biography would be useless and dull, because I don’t think mine has progressed past the “setting the scene” stage yet.  There have been plenty of characterizing incidents, yes, and at least one plotline with soap operatic potential has been recently instigated, but the overall story arc simply hasn’t climbed very high yet.
(*Although I suppose it would serve as a convenient replacement for the diary I’ve been too lazy to maintain.)

If it were to be a COMPLETED biography, accurately projecting all the major events destined to befall me up till the day I die, I would want every copy burned and run the other way in terror.  Books may have earned people excommunications, death warrants, and social pariahdom—but I would argue that no book on earth has ever ruined someone’s life to that extent.

The final major option is that the novel could be fiction, say sci fi or fantasy.  It would bear no relation whatsoever to my life, except that it would feature an accurate representation of myself as the heroine.  The first option (Third Person Omniscient w/ Multiple POVs) would be valuable beyond measure to me, but this one would be the most objectively entertaining and enjoyable and perhaps the only commercially viable one.  I would be guaranteed a character I could identify with to vicariously experience the thrills of a fantasy world through, and even if I wound up getting gruesomely slaughtered or making an abject fool of myself, then at least that would make me feel better about my tragic failure thus far to actually access a fantasy world. 

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