I’m thinking about a new kind of novel. Maybe it will emerge in the course of this little note. Let’s find out!
- Max Thackara = a fictional character, flourishing in his fictionality (hard-earned), and ready to roam.
Because I’ve got the dwelling nailed down, you see. Dwelling had to be secured first; otherwise, roaming would slip into unconscious home-seeking. Never roam to find home, all ye seekers!
So what is the new kind of novel? Well, I could treat the Journal as a kind of novel, and I suppose it is… but that doesn’t satisfy my Beatnik itch!
What was the Journal? A landing document. It secured my status as fully fictional, and thereby fully real and fully free. But that is not roaming, that is landing!
- True roaming = exploring existence (real and imagined) from a dwelling centre.
The Journal, then, as well as all subsequent private entries, is dwelling. But a new kind of novel would be roaming within.
Charles became Hank to navigate and stay true to a fictional world which too often hid behind the ‘real’, but Max no longer needs to become Mixed to do the same…
- Autobiographical fiction = living truly.
- Normal fiction = living truly in worlds elsewhere.
The new kind of novel would thus feature Max Thackara as a character, but he would remain centred and would be merely ‘passing through’ each story. Every other character would have total ontological reality and independence, even as they are explored by me, as the sole narrator of the novel.
I’ve just discovered life again, haven’t I? Oh well!
Down into Hell the journey of the self goes… then a gentle meander through Limbo… and finally back up into a relational Heaven…
There’s something of worth in all this, I’m sure of it!
- Fictional life resumes, on the page and off it.
MT 