Fiction

I have recently read the latest entries in two multi-volume fiction series: Party Princess by Meg Cabot (from The Princess Diaries) and Miss Julia Takes a Stand by Ann B. Ross. They both arrived at the library in the same shipment and I did what I do only rarely and for only three or four series – snatched them up before anyone else got to them and spirited them home to read them. Thus, I felt strong pressure to get them read quickly and back to the library.

Reading those two books back-to-back was interesting. They are both written in first person. Mia, in The Princess Diaries, keeps a journal which then becomes the book. Time moves very slowly in these books, with each one covering little more than a week. (The girl must write at lightening speed to fill a book’s worth of journals in a week, writing down conversations as they occur and recording each day in detail along with her reflections on the events going on around her.) She is 15 and such a teenager, popping back and forth between major international social issues that are calling for her attention (being a princess and all) and minor personal social issues that manage to capture her full attention most of the time without effort.. I marvel at the ability of the author to portray Mia as so shallow and clueless and yet so earnest and likable. By book count, I probably read more children’s fiction than any other single genre of writing and these books stand out in my mind as exceptional writing. One thing I’ve enjoyed is how the author has woven the two movies based on her Princess Diary books into the story itself. (Mia was embarrassed by being dragged further into the spotlight and noted that the movies changed some of the details of her life.) The books are crammed so full of pop culture that they’ll require a dictionary of our time in order for future generations to appreciate them. They're unlikely to stay in print for any great length of time, but they’re a treat for today and I enjoy them.

Miss Julia is at the opposite end of life from Mia, in her “golden years” and newly widowed at the beginning of the series. In the books, she reports what’s happening in her life and shares her opinions and observations concerning those happenings. Again, I am impressed by how the author manages to portray her character as flawed yet attractive. In this most recent entry in the series, Miss Julia at one point worries that an action she might be forced to take would stir up the town gossips. She informs us that “gossip has been the bane of my existence”. As I read her words, I hear the exact tone of her voice because I’ve heard those words, or words like them, so many times. In the next paragraph she remembers that she has failed to update her husband (whom she married a couple of books ago) concerning marital trouble a couple they know is reportedly having and corrects that oversight. And again, I admire how the author leaves her character clueless while letting us in on the fact that Miss Julia enjoys gossip well enough when it concerns other people.

In both these series, everything the reader learns about the world being created by the author is seen through the eyes of the narrator/main character. Yet, we manage to learn things concerning these worlds to which the narrator remains oblivious; the narrator tells us things she herself does not know.

I presume that the words I write (and speak) sometimes say more than I intend them to say as people read between the lines and pick up on what I’m revealing but not saying. I presume that sometimes people get a chuckle at my expense when that happens because they find my cluelessness amusing. But I don’t know how someone can deliberately step into a personality whose foibles they recognize and intend to reveal to their readers and stay in character while revealing those foibles. If I were ever going to write fiction, I think this is the type of fiction I would want to write, but I can no more imagine being able to do it than I can imagine painting the Mona Lisa.

Writers of good fiction amaze me.