From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Tue May 03 2005 - 23:27:22 BST
Dan,
Many thanks for the long and detailed explanation concerning the fictional
status of Lila's Child. As it's not supposed to be set in stone then, the
question that springs to mind is when do you propose to update it and to
what degree?
Best wishes,
Anthony.
>From: "Dan Glover" <daneglover@hotmail.com>
>
>Hi Tim, Ant
>
>Thank you for drawing this to my attention, Ant. I've been busy, have much
>reading from moq.org to catch up on, and I did miss Tim's original
>question. To answer ... here are some definitions of "fiction" from
>dictionary.com:
>
>1. a. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent
>actuality but has been invented.
>
>b. The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
>
>2. a. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is
>not necessarily based on fact.
>
>b. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including
>novels and short stories
>
>In addtion there is this:
>
>Word History: To most people “the latest fiction” means the latest novels
>or stories rather than the most recently invented pretense or latest lie.
>All three senses of the word fiction point back to its source, Latin ficti,
>“the action of shaping, a feigning, that which is feigned.” Ficti in turn
>was derived from fingere, “to make by shaping, feign, make up or invent a
>story or excuse.” Our first instance of fiction, recorded in a work
>composed around 1412, was used in the sense “invention of the mind, that
>which is imaginatively invented.” It is not a far step from this meaning to
>the sense “imaginative literature,” first recorded in 1599.
>
>Dan Glover comments:
>
>If a person were to look at Lila's Child as non-fiction, everything said
>therein could be taken as truthful, set in stone (so to speak), and
>unchanging. However, it's clear that everything contained in LC is instead
>provisional and subject to change should something better come along. So it
>seemed best to classify LC as a fictional body of work despite the fact
>that real people wrote it. I'm not saying Lila's Child is a made up or
>invented story but rather it's an invention of the mind and not a so-called
>objective truth as a non-fiction designation would imply.
>
>I hope this answers your question and I welcome any further comments.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Dan
>
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