The Truth About Stories

OMG OMG OMG! Authors talking about writing and contemporary issues!

      Thomas King, a man of Cherokee, Greek, and German descent once wrote a book called “The Truth About Stories”. King opens the book with a fairly common piece of lore. In this scene a storyteller is relating to an audience that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle. Someone in the audience asks “but what does the turtle stand on?” Well, as it turns out, another turtle. This goes on for a bit and then finally the audience member asks, “Well what does the last turtle stand on?” to which the storyteller replies “It’s turtles all the way down.” King then says, “The truth about stories is that’s all we are. It’s stories all the way down.”

If I had to identify a motivating force or philosophy in my life, this would be it. I truly believe that all any individual, all any culture, all the entire world is made up of is stories. Stories about what happened to us, stories about what we believe, stories of history, of creation, of destruction; it’s all stories. Some stories are true, and some are not, and all of them are twisted in the telling, but that’s okay, that’s how it’s supposed to be.

  This, I think, is why I’ve always been so interested in literature. Stories tell you about people; about how they view the world, about how the world views them, about how they view themselves, and to be able to see into that, to get a glimpse into someone else’s world, is incredibly compelling.

  This is basically why I spent four years of my life - and a good portion of my parent’s money - reading my way through college. I majored in Spanish and English literature and every chance I got I took a class that focused on the narratives of a particular group, because that, to me, is the best window onto the world.

Which is why, when I heard that as part of work we would be going to the Franschhoek literary festival, I was more than a little excited (doesn’t hurt that Franschhoek’s the town with all the gorgeous vinyards. And mountains.)

The program for the literary festival showed such sessions as “Freedom of Information?” featuring the cartoonist ‘Zapiro’ - famous for depicting president Jacob Zuma with a shower head resting on the back of his head. This after Zuma admitted that yes he had knowingly had sex with an HIV-positive girl without wearing a condom but it was okay because he took a shower after. 

  There were also sessions on foreign aid in Africa, the role of print journalism among emergent online media, gay and lesbian issues, muslim issues, and a lot of book readings. In other words, my version of heaven. Have I mentioned this is all in the middle of vinyards? At the foot of a range of mountains?

  In and amongst all of these sessions was also one called “Writing Africa” in which Harry Garuba, director of the centre for African Studies at University of Cape Town, talked about the then and now of African writing with a panel of authors. I didn’t recognize any of the names, but my inner monologue still went “OMG OMG OMG!” at the prospect of the talk. Because that’s the kind of inner monologue two literature degrees from U.Va. will get you!

  The talk turned out to be phenomenal. There was discussion of why the authors chose their subjects, what it’s like to be a “African author” and what are the issues facing authors today.

Most compelling for me was Sindiwe Magona, a woman who just wrote a book called “Beauty’s Gift” which is about a middle class South African who dies of complications of AIDS. In talking about why she wrote the story, Ms. Magona spoke about the day she learned that eventually no South African family would be unaffected by HIV. She was in New York at the time and, “I came home,” she explained, “and I looked at my family, and I thought ‘which one?’
  She then gave a moving and impassioned talk about the global HIV epidemic, about how many people are affected by it, and about how ignored it is. The whole time she was talking about this, I was thinking about the similarities to America. Where even though HIV exists, and we are extremely educated about it, we like to think of it as elsewhere, other people, not a problem close to us. Not a problem that will ever be close to us.  Because that’s one of the things stories do. They make you think.

  In other interesting moments of the talk Ms. Magona suggested organizing a “Toi toi” of upscale bookshops which relegated “African Wrtiers” to a space on the back shelves (I, not knowing what a toi toi was, had to turn to the woman in back of me and ask. Turns out it is a protest where people gather and sing and dance and chant to express their displeasure).

  The only man on the panel (whose name I didn’t catch) talked about not wanting to write about white oppression in his books because it occupied so much of his life and his thoughts that he didn’t want to give it any more space in his imagination. When asked what the political significance of that was he countered by asking why it had to have any political significance, why it wasn’t okay to just be comfortable being who you were and writing about it.

  The youngest author on the panel brought up points about the struggles of being a contemporary African writer, about not writing in your mother tongue, about immigration and being from one place but living in another and the issues this brings to someone personally, and to their writing.

  The entire talk, I was rapt with attention, and I found every comment more interesting than the last. I took a class on African writing this past term. It was good, it was interesting, I learned a lot. I would have traded the whole term for listening to another hour of these guys talking.

  I spent a lot of time thinking about why this was so, and I think it has something to do with the fact that occasionally in literature in the quest for meaning and unpacking every little truth and twist and turn of a particular tale we sometimes overlook what’s really important about any good narrative. 

  It’s power. It’s beauty. It’s the way it hits you in the gut. It’s what it reflects, what it illuminates, what it adds to perspective and understanding. Most of all what it says to you. Most of all what it does for you. 
      Because at the bottom of all this intellectualism and analysis and competition to be the one who found the magic key of the deepest meaning no one else has ever figured out it’s just stories. It’s stories all the way down.