To point, or not to point?

Quick, what's the moral/point of 1984? Don't give the government total control! And what about Lord of the Flies? Human nature is degenerate, and truly capable of darkness! What about "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret"? That life is a constant question of identity, even at such a young, developing age, good!

Now what about Lolita? Umm... Don't date young girls? No, well. That's obvious. Don't travel all around America? No, not really... Alright well how about Money, by Martin Amis? Well, obviously don't get into the movie business. No, that's what Hollywood's for. Don't be John Self? Don't think so. Well what about Tropic of Capricorn? Actually that IS just a fantastically long ramble...

It would appear, upon second glance at some of these books, that they don't have a point. Not a central theme to tie the entire thing together. You sit down, read the book and have a great time, am inspired by the writing, the characters. And when you think about it, summing up the point is just pointing at something the characters did, and realising that's not an event--that's a point. A bit like Alice in Wonderland, she has an episodic time without any real story being told.

Quick aside on Alice. She's one of my favourite heroins in all of literature, and always will be. The characters are wonderfully different and written, and the events are all silly and nonsensical, and don't lend themself very well to real-world movies (no really, just watch Burton's attempt). Alice in Wonderland is great for character, how it's written, and nothing else.

That's the point I'm making here. You can have a great book without any particular point. Vladamir Nabakov said (writer of Lolita and Pale Fire) that he didn't have any moral intended for the book -- he just wanted to write. He set out learning English (he grew up russian, da) and then wanted to write a fantastically lyrical book, which he did. There wasn't any point he was trying to make, so we must assume then that the success is simply a great big "Look at me, and my writing!" Normally I'd say that's egotistical. If you really set out to just write a book to show off how well you could write, that's trite.

But with Nabakov, and Miller and Amis I am well and truly happy they have. You could include Naked Lunch in that lot, very easily. William Burrough's book was the first one I truly had some difficulty reading. Graphic to a horrid point, yet you get the idea -- the life of a drug addled anyone is going to be NUTS. Not only that, but it's a real part of society and needs addressing. Before that, it needs to be observed. So perhaps Naked Lunch does have more of a point to make then the other books, but it's still essentially a man's record of a crazy time he's had, and it is laid out before the reader, to make of it what they will.

Peter David, a comic book writer, spoke about the three main categories a book's story may follow. A person versus Nature (One flew over the cuckoos nest, Falconer). A persons versus someone/group else (1984). And finally, a person versus themself, such as our above listed books. In each story we see the struggle of a character against themself. Always wanting to be better their situation. Struggling to not just give in and do what everyone else is doing, what they think they should do.

I think that this style of story really frees up the contraints of a writer, allowing them to indeed focus much more on character, happenstance and writing well. If you have a point to make, then very well -- make it so well, so believable and loud that the world can't help but notice (Grapes of Wrath, 1984, I'm looking at your). If you're going to avoid making a specific point, then give us a bloody good look at something we wouldn't experience in our life. So the crazed drugged decades of Burrough's life, pre-Naked Lunch -- I thank you. John Self's hazardous life styled around making a movie, Martin Amis I thank you. Henry Miller and your crazy, self-styled bouts of fantastic imagery and head-trips -- I think I thank you the most.

For in reader we can find entertainment, and we don't need to learn anything specific or revolutionary from it. We can just have a very nice piece of writing, one that takes us away from our lot in life and gives us someone else's shoes to wear, and properly.

There is a balance here, between choosing a point, and choosing to write well. Writing without a point, as I said above, seems stupid to me, or highly pretentious. To manage this style of book without being pretentious is incredibly hard, but I think opening the honesty barrel and tipping it onto the page is the only way.

The best example I can give you of this is also the most likely to offend book, Tropic of Capricorn. Consider the fact that every second word begins with c and is four letters. Miller never apologises, never begins to apologise, and had his book banned just about everywhere before it was printed. This is the kind of honesty and connection you need with the reader, before they'll consider your work not pretentious, but actually truth, your truth, that they are then thankful for the sharing of.

So taking all the above into consideration, I'm feeling a little bit better about the lack of any single clear theme running through my own book.

Thank you for reading.