On Walden Pond

How often do I ask myself, “Why do you participate so willingly in the noisy rat race of humanity?” This is a difficult question when contemplated from the shores of Walden Pond, but my first response is easy–I don’t like being alone all the time and solitude is not all that it’s cracked up to be. At first the idea of being an independent being, completely removed from the frothing mass of humanity seems appealing, far from the maddening crowd. I mean, why should we put up with all the mediatic noise that contaminates our daily routine, the “circuses and bread” thrown to us by idiotic politicians and unthinking news sources that are only interested in defending their own interests and the truth be damned. On Walden Pond I can isolate myself from all of this noise, forget about the savage capitalistic consumerism of my neighbors, shut out the news media, turn a blind eye to the “entertainment” offered on the six hundred channels of cable, and listen to the birds chirp and the wind blow across the pond and through the trees who are my only neighbors. It is easier to live on Walden Pond than it is to tolerate the nonsense that invades my day via newspapers, radio, television, and the internet, but I can’t help but think that something is missing. Granted the noise of the daily grind is infuriating if not irritating, but is perpetual silence preferable? Am I shirking a moral responsibility to participate in the goings on that bother me, irk me, infuriate me? There have been others who have removed themselves from participation in daily life–hermits, anchorites, saints, castaways, the shipwrecked, and in all of those cases there seems to be a sacrifice which is made–the company of other human beings. After re-reading Robinson Crusoe again recently, I came to the conclusion that although Crusoe lived in isolation, he did everything he could to reproduce European society around himself, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, so that he would feel less alone, and that is what I feel here–alone. Nevertheless, “aloneness” is not entirely a bad thing unless it also looks like a prison sentence that has no end. Perhaps this is why Cain and Abel were brothers, that one alone would have been a tragedy, but paradoxically, the two together was also a tragedy. So one must consider carefully the entire question of human existence in terms of this metaphor, the pair of brothers in which love turned to hate and finally to murder because they could not co-exist without the questions of greed, jealousy, and envy destroying their relationship. Yet, one alone would have also died of eternal melancholy brought on by the loneliness of one voice speaking in a vacuum with no one to hear of either his successes or failures. Is this the central metaphor of human existence? The water laps gently on the shore, the birds twitter and caw overhead, the gentle wind blows through the trees, and if I were to fall, no one would here my cries, no one would be there to help me. The central paradox of Walden Pond seems to be my inability to rid myself of my own humanity, my desire to speak with others, to interact even with those with whom I disagree. My own ideas are interesting but I cannot exist in a vacuum either. Perhaps we are all doomed by our own noise and our inability to separate ourselves from it. In the meantime, I look forward to examining this conundrum a bit further.

On Walden Pond

How often do I ask myself, “Why do you participate so willingly in the noisy rat race of humanity?” This is a difficult question when contemplated from the shores of Walden Pond, but my first response is easy–I don’t like being alone all the time and solitude is not all that it’s cracked up to be. At first the idea of being an independent being, completely removed from the frothing mass of humanity seems appealing, far from the maddening crowd. I mean, why should we put up with all the mediatic noise that contaminates our daily routine, the “circuses and bread” thrown to us by idiotic politicians and unthinking news sources that are only interested in defending their own interests and the truth be damned. On Walden Pond I can isolate myself from all of this noise, forget about the savage capitalistic consumerism of my neighbors, shut out the news media, turn a blind eye to the “entertainment” offered on the six hundred channels of cable, and listen to the birds chirp and the wind blow across the pond and through the trees who are my only neighbors. It is easier to live on Walden Pond than it is to tolerate the nonsense that invades my day via newspapers, radio, television, and the internet, but I can’t help but think that something is missing. Granted the noise of the daily grind is infuriating if not irritating, but is perpetual silence preferable? Am I shirking a moral responsibility to participate in the goings on that bother me, irk me, infuriate me? There have been others who have removed themselves from participation in daily life–hermits, anchorites, saints, castaways, the shipwrecked, and in all of those cases there seems to be a sacrifice which is made–the company of other human beings. After re-reading Robinson Crusoe again recently, I came to the conclusion that although Crusoe lived in isolation, he did everything he could to reproduce European society around himself, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, so that he would feel less alone, and that is what I feel here–alone. Nevertheless, “aloneness” is not entirely a bad thing unless it also looks like a prison sentence that has no end. Perhaps this is why Cain and Abel were brothers, that one alone would have been a tragedy, but paradoxically, the two together was also a tragedy. So one must consider carefully the entire question of human existence in terms of this metaphor, the pair of brothers in which love turned to hate and finally to murder because they could not co-exist without the questions of greed, jealousy, and envy destroying their relationship. Yet, one alone would have also died of eternal melancholy brought on by the loneliness of one voice speaking in a vacuum with no one to hear of either his successes or failures. Is this the central metaphor of human existence? The water laps gently on the shore, the birds twitter and caw overhead, the gentle wind blows through the trees, and if I were to fall, no one would here my cries, no one would be there to help me. The central paradox of Walden Pond seems to be my inability to rid myself of my own humanity, my desire to speak with others, to interact even with those with whom I disagree. My own ideas are interesting but I cannot exist in a vacuum either. Perhaps we are all doomed by our own noise and our inability to separate ourselves from it. In the meantime, I look forward to examining this conundrum a bit further.

On starting over

As someone who works in education, for most of my life the end of August and the beginning of September has been about starting over as the new education year begins. I associate the dog days of August with back to school specials, the weird NFL pre-season, and a new school year. The students have come back to campus and today was the second day of move-in for those living in the dorms. All of this means starting over, especially for the first-year students who just three short months ago were the top dogs in their respective high schools. Now they are starting over as first-year fish. They are frightened, excited, confused, lonesome, lost, and out of their element. Their lives as high school students are over, their childhoods are ending, quickly, so they are starting over. Perhaps the only thing that never changes in life is change itself. We get used to a situation, a neighborhood, a job, a subway system, a car, a home, a relationship, and then something happens. We graduate, move to a new city, someone retires, a car breaks down, a new job comes along, a marriage, a divorce, a death, and we are forced to start over and our world is turned upside down and nothing seems normal, all of our recognizable cultural and social markers disappear. Different people react differently to starting over. For some, starting over is a welcome relief from their past and they greet starting over with open arms–they can put a tough past behind them, rebuild their personal identity, leave their old baggage on the curb. Others, however, are forced to start over under dire circumstances, facing life alone, single, without parents or boyfriend or wife or whoever might have been their personal support system. For still others, starting over is a tragedy, an enormous fiasco, a complete collapse, a boulevard of shattered dreams. Some people throw in the towel, give up, fold, quit, stop caring. Both stability and continuity are illusory and unrealistic in our fragmented, discontinuous, and chaotic world. For our first-year students, this is probably the first time they are facing life out on their own away from their parents and siblings–they are starting over. When I came to my current job over twenty years ago, I had to start over. Two decades have flown by, and I am very comfortable with both job and city, although I must say that Texas keeps my nerves rather rattled. Starting over–the race, the day, the job, the novel–is a mixed bag of emotions, experiences, stumbles, false starts, stalled plans, wrong turns, detours, stops, starts, unplanned surprises. Nothing is ever what we plan it to be, nothing is ever what it seems to be. In the end, our best laid plans go for naught, and for one reason or another, we end up starting over. This is the normal state of affairs. We have to start over. Starting over is the natural progression of how life cycles us through our routines, year in and year out. I find the process of starting over to be both liberating and refreshing. The fact that we all have to start over is one of those cold facts of life that we all know, but that we frequently choose to ignore.

On starting over

As someone who works in education, for most of my life the end of August and the beginning of September has been about starting over as the new education year begins. I associate the dog days of August with back to school specials, the weird NFL pre-season, and a new school year. The students have come back to campus and today was the second day of move-in for those living in the dorms. All of this means starting over, especially for the first-year students who just three short months ago were the top dogs in their respective high schools. Now they are starting over as first-year fish. They are frightened, excited, confused, lonesome, lost, and out of their element. Their lives as high school students are over, their childhoods are ending, quickly, so they are starting over. Perhaps the only thing that never changes in life is change itself. We get used to a situation, a neighborhood, a job, a subway system, a car, a home, a relationship, and then something happens. We graduate, move to a new city, someone retires, a car breaks down, a new job comes along, a marriage, a divorce, a death, and we are forced to start over and our world is turned upside down and nothing seems normal, all of our recognizable cultural and social markers disappear. Different people react differently to starting over. For some, starting over is a welcome relief from their past and they greet starting over with open arms–they can put a tough past behind them, rebuild their personal identity, leave their old baggage on the curb. Others, however, are forced to start over under dire circumstances, facing life alone, single, without parents or boyfriend or wife or whoever might have been their personal support system. For still others, starting over is a tragedy, an enormous fiasco, a complete collapse, a boulevard of shattered dreams. Some people throw in the towel, give up, fold, quit, stop caring. Both stability and continuity are illusory and unrealistic in our fragmented, discontinuous, and chaotic world. For our first-year students, this is probably the first time they are facing life out on their own away from their parents and siblings–they are starting over. When I came to my current job over twenty years ago, I had to start over. Two decades have flown by, and I am very comfortable with both job and city, although I must say that Texas keeps my nerves rather rattled. Starting over–the race, the day, the job, the novel–is a mixed bag of emotions, experiences, stumbles, false starts, stalled plans, wrong turns, detours, stops, starts, unplanned surprises. Nothing is ever what we plan it to be, nothing is ever what it seems to be. In the end, our best laid plans go for naught, and for one reason or another, we end up starting over. This is the normal state of affairs. We have to start over. Starting over is the natural progression of how life cycles us through our routines, year in and year out. I find the process of starting over to be both liberating and refreshing. The fact that we all have to start over is one of those cold facts of life that we all know, but that we frequently choose to ignore.

On a hot summer night

There are times when the inspiration doesn’t come, but you still feel like you need to say something. Maybe it’s a little existentialist angst brought on by high July temperatures, but maybe it’s not. You would like to write about something profound such as the meaning of life, but this evening you get the distinct feeling that life is just so much chaos with no real point at all. You feel tired, but don’t want to sleep, you feel isolated with people around you. Your spirit is unquiet, cranky, out of place, demanding, uncaring. You can’t find anything on television which interests you, and none of the books you are reading seem the least bit appealing. There are nights in this life which make you question everything, but not of the answers satisfy you either, as if you don’t want to hear any of the answers, everything rings hollow and superficial. Is the heat that makes me feel this way? Is it a hot, sweaty night that which makes everything seem fragmented, discontinuous, and chaotic? Or do we live with a constant illusion of order and objectives within which we create meaning for lives which really have no meaning? Or am I only dreaming? Nothing that I’ve tried to write this evening has sounded either truthful or meaningful, so much clanging of bells and the banging of fireworks–nothing, in other words. Perhaps the existential crisis of waiting for Godot is a little worse in the heat when the sweat runs down your neck, the sun beats down on your skull, and the temperatures rise all around you. You feel that your crisis of identify, your reason for being, your objectives in life, seem hollow and empty like the foam on a beach or an empty fountain pen. What does it all mean, you ask, but nothing echoes off of the empty halls of the night. You look everywhere for answers, but the best you can master is a bunch of meaningless graffiti. On a hot summer night, the wolves howl in the distance as if they knew what they were doing, but their solitude only reconfirms your idea that man (and woman) spends their entire life pursuing objectives so that they won’t end up alone, listening to their own lies. Perhaps what is magnified on a night like this is the true and profound loneliness of all human beings. The story of Robinson Crusoe is frightening not because he is shipwrecked, but because he is shipwrecked alone. So the soul ambles by itself on a hot night like this, looking for a place where it won’t be alone. I have no idea if life has a meaning or not. It may be something as mundane as the number “46” or as complex as non-linear equations. I don’t think it is either of those things, but it may be something as simple as “other people.” There is no way to know. In the end, life has got to be a question of faith–no question about it. There is no chance that rational empiricism or cold cruel logic will ever answer any question that is really worth asking. And I often wonder if we are capable of even formulating the correct questions for understanding our world or if we just think we do. The night settles in, sweaty and warm, solitary and dark, answers are hard to come by, and just perhaps the thing that saves us from ourselves, our doubt, or failure, is sleep, which puts a stop to our nervous thoughts of infinity out on the edge of the universe.

On a hot summer night

There are times when the inspiration doesn’t come, but you still feel like you need to say something. Maybe it’s a little existentialist angst brought on by high July temperatures, but maybe it’s not. You would like to write about something profound such as the meaning of life, but this evening you get the distinct feeling that life is just so much chaos with no real point at all. You feel tired, but don’t want to sleep, you feel isolated with people around you. Your spirit is unquiet, cranky, out of place, demanding, uncaring. You can’t find anything on television which interests you, and none of the books you are reading seem the least bit appealing. There are nights in this life which make you question everything, but not of the answers satisfy you either, as if you don’t want to hear any of the answers, everything rings hollow and superficial. Is the heat that makes me feel this way? Is it a hot, sweaty night that which makes everything seem fragmented, discontinuous, and chaotic? Or do we live with a constant illusion of order and objectives within which we create meaning for lives which really have no meaning? Or am I only dreaming? Nothing that I’ve tried to write this evening has sounded either truthful or meaningful, so much clanging of bells and the banging of fireworks–nothing, in other words. Perhaps the existential crisis of waiting for Godot is a little worse in the heat when the sweat runs down your neck, the sun beats down on your skull, and the temperatures rise all around you. You feel that your crisis of identify, your reason for being, your objectives in life, seem hollow and empty like the foam on a beach or an empty fountain pen. What does it all mean, you ask, but nothing echoes off of the empty halls of the night. You look everywhere for answers, but the best you can master is a bunch of meaningless graffiti. On a hot summer night, the wolves howl in the distance as if they knew what they were doing, but their solitude only reconfirms your idea that man (and woman) spends their entire life pursuing objectives so that they won’t end up alone, listening to their own lies. Perhaps what is magnified on a night like this is the true and profound loneliness of all human beings. The story of Robinson Crusoe is frightening not because he is shipwrecked, but because he is shipwrecked alone. So the soul ambles by itself on a hot night like this, looking for a place where it won’t be alone. I have no idea if life has a meaning or not. It may be something as mundane as the number “46” or as complex as non-linear equations. I don’t think it is either of those things, but it may be something as simple as “other people.” There is no way to know. In the end, life has got to be a question of faith–no question about it. There is no chance that rational empiricism or cold cruel logic will ever answer any question that is really worth asking. And I often wonder if we are capable of even formulating the correct questions for understanding our world or if we just think we do. The night settles in, sweaty and warm, solitary and dark, answers are hard to come by, and just perhaps the thing that saves us from ourselves, our doubt, or failure, is sleep, which puts a stop to our nervous thoughts of infinity out on the edge of the universe.

On a stormy night

Thunderstorms are rolling through central Texas. I do have to leave one car out in the chaos, but it’s a little old and can handle it. The suspense is strange because we can watch the storms approach on radar. They look menacing, but will they really make it to Waco? We could use the rain, but we don’t need hail or strong winds, and we certainly don’t need tornados or damaging winds to knock down our homes, buildings, or trees. The fury of Mother Nature is quite humbling. She can manage to move enormous amounts of wind and rain, hail, and show us how weak and pathetic we really are. We put up all kinds of structures, pretending that they will last in spite of the weather and the passing of time. Putting up structures has been the story of mankind, but the ruins of those structures stand as mute testimony to the enduring power of Mother Nature to blow-off roofs, knock down trees, break windows, and shatter the dreams of builders and architects everywhere. In a sense, the normal state of any building or structure is a ruin. When we see or experience a building in its pristine or new, recently constructed state, we are experiencing the exception to the rule that all buildings will always end in a ruin. Whatever the architect’s original dream was, all buildings will always end up in an archeologist’s sketch book. Thunderstorms are an implacable metaphor for the destructive nature of time. The violence of lightening and wind, driving rain, are indicative of the giant forces that lie just below the surface of a beautiful spring day. Behind the moderate temperatures, blue skies, and light breezes lurk the life-changing destructive powers of nature. We make the error of thinking that we are in control with our beautiful homes, air-conditioning, and heating, but the sad truth is that this is nothing but hubris and wishful thinking. A beautiful day is really a simulacrum for peace and tranquility, and we all know that peace and tranquility are just a bit of wishful thinking that precede a dark night of disasters and broken dreams. Stormy nights like this one are made for contemplating the darker side of life, for thinking about the fragility of our plans, and how those plans can so easily go astray, run up on the rocks, go up in smoke. A stormy night is a reminder for everyone that we are not in control, and that all of our attempts to simulate control are both erroneous and pointless. We stand at the edge of a chasm without really knowing it or realizing it. We put on a good face, a mask of civility which hides the fear, the sadness, the doubts. A stormy night mirrors the internal chaos of each person–depression, melancholy, conflict, fears, and desire. Whether the rain and hail fall, whether the winds blow, whether the lightening strikes, is immaterial, it is the metaphor of the impending storm that matters. Who knows if it will ever rain again, but the threat is out there, the storm approaches, and everything is uncertain.

On a stormy night

Thunderstorms are rolling through central Texas. I do have to leave one car out in the chaos, but it’s a little old and can handle it. The suspense is strange because we can watch the storms approach on radar. They look menacing, but will they really make it to Waco? We could use the rain, but we don’t need hail or strong winds, and we certainly don’t need tornados or damaging winds to knock down our homes, buildings, or trees. The fury of Mother Nature is quite humbling. She can manage to move enormous amounts of wind and rain, hail, and show us how weak and pathetic we really are. We put up all kinds of structures, pretending that they will last in spite of the weather and the passing of time. Putting up structures has been the story of mankind, but the ruins of those structures stand as mute testimony to the enduring power of Mother Nature to blow-off roofs, knock down trees, break windows, and shatter the dreams of builders and architects everywhere. In a sense, the normal state of any building or structure is a ruin. When we see or experience a building in its pristine or new, recently constructed state, we are experiencing the exception to the rule that all buildings will always end in a ruin. Whatever the architect’s original dream was, all buildings will always end up in an archeologist’s sketch book. Thunderstorms are an implacable metaphor for the destructive nature of time. The violence of lightening and wind, driving rain, are indicative of the giant forces that lie just below the surface of a beautiful spring day. Behind the moderate temperatures, blue skies, and light breezes lurk the life-changing destructive powers of nature. We make the error of thinking that we are in control with our beautiful homes, air-conditioning, and heating, but the sad truth is that this is nothing but hubris and wishful thinking. A beautiful day is really a simulacrum for peace and tranquility, and we all know that peace and tranquility are just a bit of wishful thinking that precede a dark night of disasters and broken dreams. Stormy nights like this one are made for contemplating the darker side of life, for thinking about the fragility of our plans, and how those plans can so easily go astray, run up on the rocks, go up in smoke. A stormy night is a reminder for everyone that we are not in control, and that all of our attempts to simulate control are both erroneous and pointless. We stand at the edge of a chasm without really knowing it or realizing it. We put on a good face, a mask of civility which hides the fear, the sadness, the doubts. A stormy night mirrors the internal chaos of each person–depression, melancholy, conflict, fears, and desire. Whether the rain and hail fall, whether the winds blow, whether the lightening strikes, is immaterial, it is the metaphor of the impending storm that matters. Who knows if it will ever rain again, but the threat is out there, the storm approaches, and everything is uncertain.

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.