Authors that write fiction and life that imitations it ?

Crocodile

Crocodile

G.O.A.T.
Hi everyone, hope you are all well. I just wanted to share some thoughts about reading books. Over the years, i must say that I have spent a lot more time reading non-fiction books that were informative in a particular subject area than made up fiction story books. I just had this view that I wanted to keep expanding my knowledge and learn things so naturally I thought that non fiction books were the way to go. Non-fiction books you could argue are a very safe option and what you read is what you get:
I have noticed of more recent times people gravitating towards certain fiction books and then discussing deeply the hidden meanings behind a story line. It’s like the author used a fictional storyline to send an important message to the reader. And a lot of fiction books become movies and plays and sometimes for some reason a life event can actually even come true in real life with happenings almost as if the author knew what was was coming for society. One such book was George Orwell’s 1984 and many science fiction technologies. Stephen Spielbergs, “Close encounters of the third kind “, certainly left an impression on many people’s minds as to what is possible out there.
Anyway I think fiction books give the author more latitude to write more risky stuff without getting into trouble.
Have you got any fiction books that you have read that has captured your attention?
 
I don't know if I'm reading your title properly. I'd say ALL fiction imitate and make a commentary on real life to a certain extent, and as you say, in a safe manner as you can satirize society and political situations and get away it by saying it's all a story.

I remember watching a TED Talk video about how to build a convincing fictional world, and basically RULES are a big part of it as they serve to lay the groundwork for events and happenings in the story, making them believable in the context of that world. And these rules are often ones that have their roots in reality.
 
It seems to me that almost all fiction writing can be boiled down to exploring the psychology of how people
relate to each other and/or to elements of of their civilization or social order.
Yes, in many ways authors construct the worlds of their novels out of bits and pieces of more-or-less standard
"building blocks"- but the better writers leave us with the feeling that these bits and pieces add up to something
more than the sum of those individual parts. Well, I suppose, there is a bit more to it than that.
 
Simpsons have predicted some really oddly specific things

A show called "Trackdown" in the 1950s featured a con-man character named Trump who was trying to convince the townsfolk to literally build a wall to protect them from the end of the world. Not making this up
 
Rosstour said:
Simpsons have predicted some really oddly specific things

A show called "Trackdown" in the 1950s featured a con-man character named Trump who was trying to convince the townsfolk to literally build a wall to protect them from the end of the world. Not making this up
Click to expand...
Link please.
 
I wonder if people imitate TV Shows. When Breaking Bad TV show was running, one of my neighbours was arrested for running a meth lab in his apartment. That happened about the same time during the 3rd or 4th season of Breaking Bad.
 
KantenKlaar said:
but the better writers leave us with the feeling that these bits and pieces add up to something - can @Bagumbawalla maybe provide an example
Click to expand...
Well, Clay Lover, up above, mentions rules that authors follow to give their work form and relatability. And that is true, just like constructing a house
there are many tried-and-true steps, forms, techniques for building a story. all I meant to imply is what is probably already obvious- if you
take two people, set before them the (for example) elements for a still-life painting, give each person the same materials, paints, canvas, objects
to paint... one might create a great work of art fit for a museum, the other something more mundane, to hang in the
kitchen above the stove. Sometimes one thing that makes a difference is breaking those very rules and conventions that we have come to expect.
 
Rosstour said:
Anything for you sir. Please post more

mashable.com

Watch a 1950s TV villain named 'Trump' try to con people into building a wall

This feels... familiar.
mashable.com mashable.com
Click to expand...
This was absolutely fascinating. I already shared it with several people. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. And sometimes fiction mirrors reality way before reality happens. Isaac Asimov's I Robot mirrored a great deal of what is happening right now with artificial intelligence. In that book it was all about robots. The artificial intelligence programs that are taking over our lives don't have robot bodies - yet. But stay tuned!
 
We (Yevgeny Zamyatin, early 1920s) influenced both Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. Today’s surveillance state and restrictions on individuality, thought, and speech reflect the worlds of both We and 1984. The doublespeak and propaganda tactics in 1984 have only become more sophisticated over time.

The "soma" of television, computer, and phone screen engagement, and their effectiveness in shaping thoughts and conditioning populations into passive acceptance makes Brave New World more prescient in many ways. All three novels deal with the loss of individuality and humanity to the will of a totalitarian state.

Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash created a world of corporate totalitarianism through the use of technology. The resulting economic disparity is similar to the world of 1984. The novel also deals with loss of freedom and privacy, and intentionally destabilized societies.
 
Mike Bulgakov said:
We (Yevgeny Zamyatin, early 1920s) influenced both Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. Today’s surveillance state and restrictions on individuality, thought, and speech reflect the worlds of both We and 1984. The doublespeak and propaganda tactics in 1984 have only become more sophisticated over time.

The "soma" of television, computer, and phone screen engagement, and their effectiveness in shaping thoughts and conditioning populations into passive acceptance makes Brave New World more prescient in many ways. All three novels deal with the loss of individuality and humanity to the will of a totalitarian state.

Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash created a world of corporate totalitarianism through the use of technology. The resulting economic disparity is similar to the world of 1984. The novel also deals with loss of freedom and privacy, and intentionally destabilized societies.
Click to expand...
When I get home I will share a title of a novel written in 2022 by an Australian author, I think it’s called - In the name of the father - and it’s about a 900 page dystopian novel.
 
Bartelby said:
You'd have to ask one of your climate denialist buddies on Sky News.
Click to expand...
Bart has Sky News paranoia. A bit of common sense and objective reality and insight is all you need. Don’t be a common sense denier and CCP EV conspiracy theorist.
 
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Vladislav Surkov's short story Without Sky, written under the pseudonym Natan Dubovitsky, has the subtext of Surkov's model for non-linear warfare. In the real world, Surkov (who previously worked in theater and advertising) helped shape the image of his country's leader, and the country's media landscape and propaganda strategies. His methods are also employed by a political power in his country's biggest adversary, as well as by leaders in many other countries.

Trust the Tale, Not the Teller?: Art and Propaganda​

By Adam KellyMarch 12, 2023​

3AYWXQb.jpeg

ON MARCH 12, 2014, a short story entitled “Without Sky” appeared in the magazine Russian Pioneer. The story takes place in the future, more than two decades after World War V, and is narrated by a man who was a six-year-old boy when that war took place. We learn in the middle of the story that this unnamed narrator lost both his parents in a collateral-damage incident during the war. The incident left the narrator himself alive but brain-damaged, unable to see anything beyond two dimensions, and thus unable to see the sky above his village. The end of the story reveals that the narrator is now part of an underground society of those stricken by the war, and the closing lines tell us that this society poses a threat to the current regime: “We will come tomorrow. We will conquer or perish. There is no third way.”
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article...er-art-and-propaganda-in-contemporary-russia/


I'm too lazy to detail Surkov's methods, so I prompted ChatGPT to do it for me.


cbo1pnJ.png


WLHtiHe.png
 
Bartelby said:
SKY NEWS GOOD. REAL JOURNALISM BAD.
Click to expand...
The new freedom movement has moved on - you are still caught in previous Generation mainstream regime media and culture. You people have aligned yourself to government, corporate and mainstream media - even your so called JJJ music is full of regime artists.
 
Crocodile said:
Yeah right - you are living in 2024 AD. First Slam was 1877 Wimbledon
Click to expand...
"And Roger lived two and forty years and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Rafa. And the days of Roger after he had begotten Rafa were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Roger lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Rafa lived an hundred and five years, and begat Novak..........."
 
Propaganda is an American invention by a relative of Sigmund Freud and it is a necessity of a "democratic society", not some prerogative of authoritarian ones:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."--Edward Bernays

51rQyRiwcbL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg


Mike Bulgakov said:
Vladislav Surkov's short story Without Sky, written under the pseudonym Natan Dubovitsky, has the subtext of Surkov's model for non-linear warfare. In the real world, Surkov (who previously worked in theater and advertising) helped shape the image of his country's leader, and the country's media landscape and propaganda strategies. His methods are also employed by a political power in his country's biggest adversary, as well as by leaders in many other countries.

Trust the Tale, Not the Teller?: Art and Propaganda​

By Adam KellyMarch 12, 2023​

3AYWXQb.jpeg

ON MARCH 12, 2014, a short story entitled “Without Sky” appeared in the magazine Russian Pioneer. The story takes place in the future, more than two decades after World War V, and is narrated by a man who was a six-year-old boy when that war took place. We learn in the middle of the story that this unnamed narrator lost both his parents in a collateral-damage incident during the war. The incident left the narrator himself alive but brain-damaged, unable to see anything beyond two dimensions, and thus unable to see the sky above his village. The end of the story reveals that the narrator is now part of an underground society of those stricken by the war, and the closing lines tell us that this society poses a threat to the current regime: “We will come tomorrow. We will conquer or perish. There is no third way.”
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article...er-art-and-propaganda-in-contemporary-russia/


I'm too lazy to detail Surkov's methods, so I prompted ChatGPT to do it for me.


cbo1pnJ.png


WLHtiHe.png
Click to expand...
 
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Climate change Ignorance is strength.

Crocodile said:
The new freedom movement has moved on - you are still caught in previous Generation mainstream regime media and culture. You people have aligned yourself to government, corporate and mainstream media - even your so called JJJ music is full of regime artists.
Click to expand...
 
Bartelby said:
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Climate change Ignorance is strength.
Click to expand...
Socialism = slavery
Surveillance sucks
Totalitarianism = Terror and Tyranny
Climate change is code for communism
Fascism is fear
But
Freedom is fun
Liberty is love
Kulture movement is kind
 
“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”

- George Orwell

Crocodile said:
Socialism = slavery
Surveillance sucks
Totalitarianism = Terror and Tyranny
Climate change is code for communism
Fascism is fear
But
Freedom is fun
Liberty is love
Kulture movement is kind
Click to expand...
 
Bartelby said:
“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”

- George Orwell
Click to expand...
George wrote the book 1984 for people like you so you wouldn’t let things happen again - as it depends on you.
 
Stanislaw Lem, "Star Diaries" Franz Kafka, "The Castle" Those two books probably had a big impact on me when I read them almost 30 years ago. I stopped reading after that because life is complicated enough through ones own eyes/ears/skin.
 
Bartelby said:
Quality is usually inversely related to popularity. And 1984 is really a political tract hiding in a bad novel.
Click to expand...
You just don’t like it because it tells it like it is when it comes to totalitarianism and how bad it is.
Quality and popularity have no corresponding correlation. You can be high quality and popular and high quality and unpopular. Needless to say the truth has a higher virtue than quality or popularity and 1984 rates high in the truth when it comes to explaining the evils of centralised planned tyrannical political systems.
The sales of this book has increased in demand rapidly right now because many people can relate to what is going down right now.
 
I like the analysis of totalitarianism, which Orwell sees as also developing in war-time Britain, something you forget.

Crocodile said:
You just don’t like it because it tells it like it is when it comes to totalitarianism and how bad it is.
Quality and popularity have no corresponding correlation. You can be high quality and popular and high quality and unpopular. Needless to say the truth has a higher virtue than quality or popularity and 1984 rates high in the truth when it comes to explaining the evils of centralised planned tyrannical political systems.
The sales of this book has increased in demand rapidly right now because many people can relate to what is going down right now.
Click to expand...
 
A couple days ago I started reading Freud's Civilization and its Discontents- It
made me think a bit.

Human psychology tends not to change. There is no significant evolution of the human mind.
No matter the time in history, or the future, or the civilization- humans, by their nature,
have the same needs, and struggle against the limits imposed on them by the
civilization (whatever its structure) in which they strive. So, there will always be an
underlying relation between now and then, no matter what science fiction elements
and social changes are introduced into a novels "fiction".

Just as in 1984, we currently have despots, controlling and manipulating the minds of men in their quest for
power. Certain elements may change in history and fictions. but mankind tends to stay the same.
 
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