What Do You Like in a Story?
While I primarily consume the non-fiction of historical academic texts and the rich memoirs and letters of figures of interest, I often consume fiction through the movies and television, my main outlet being the long-running British soap opera EastEnders, which I watch with religious fervor every day at 5pm. Weighing in at over 6,000 episodes so far, the BBC soap opera set in Albert Square, Walford, a fictional neighborhood in East London, is one of the longest-running dramas on British television, with a massive, devoted fan base. I’m proud to count myself as one of the Walford faithful.
Over the years I’ve been fiercely protective of my EastEnders’ viewing habits. Refusing to take phone calls, declining invitations to hang out, and on several occasions, giving friends the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ speech as we broke up over it. Spending time with the residents of Albert Square each night not only allows me an often necessary release from the work day, but it’s also a contributor to my mental wellbeing. I simply feel better after watching EastEnders, and feel worse when I’m ‘behind’. It leaves a Walford-sized gap in my day. No one else I know watches it, so there’s no FOMO or spoilers in the works, I’m just journeying alone on this one, and watching the show simply makes me feel more like me. It’s very often the best part of my day.
There’s all the elements you’d expect from a soap opera. The characters you love to hate, the ones you root for, despite their weaknesses, and the ones that just can’t seem to help themselves. It’s not all bad though. It consciously lightens the dramatic mood with comedic levity, and is often the funniest thing I’ll watch all day. EastEnders ebbs and flows in story quality, and there’s certainly been some lean years, but as a routine for millions of Brits across the world, it brings a familiar sense of home and grounding into my life with every episode.
So while I am a passionate consumer of fiction on television, I’m also strongly drawn to the uncanny in the movies. The kinds of stories which take the deeply familiar and adjust it ever-so-slightly to reveal an uncomfortable truth. Especially the cinema of directors David Lynch and Mike Leigh, who lift the cover on small towns and smaller families and show them for the horror they are. In particular Lynch’s intricate craft of being able to tell stories in a multi-dimensional, elastic and non-linear way, the complete opposite of EastEnders of course. I first fell in love with his work in the early nineties with Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, and have been besotted ever since. I remember being terrified by Mulholland Drive’s Cowboy the same as the nightmare-inducing Mystery Man of Lost Highway. I must have watched all of Twin Peaks several times over and am consumed by its rich lore. With Leigh it’s the often graphic depiction of the reality of modern Britain. A place that’s now over there for me. A place I recognize but no longer call home. In particular I’m drawn to the wonderfully violent and brutally sarcastic dialogue between his flawed characters, especially the sociopathic Johnny in Naked.
But when it comes to the best moments in reading fiction, I’ve found in recent years very much enjoying English playwright and author Alan Bennett’s work, especially his Talking Heads book, which was later turned into a short radio series of its own. True to what many say of fictional writing, the book is superior to the audio version. They are intensely intimate portraits of individuals who might otherwise go unnoticed. They could easily be characters within a Mike Leigh screenplay, but in Bennett’s work the ordinary is rendered in uncomfortable close-up, taking the reader from the original scene-setting of the character’s mundane life, through to something often truly horrifying and claustrophobic.
Similarly, in books I read before I watched them on television, Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers was a wonderful exploration of what would actually happen to the world if The Rapture came to pass and half the world’s population disappeared. Like Bennett, it features discomforting portraiture and holds a mirror up to the reader in asking what they’d do if they were left behind. It’s written in such a descriptive way as to feel, like Lynch, real enough as to blur the line between non-fiction and fiction. One might even read it as non-fiction if perhaps one’s faith allowed it in the same way one might read Bennett’s work as written memoir from a person down the street.
These are the moments which excite me. Not the sweeping fantasy of science fiction or the burnt-out husk of superhero franchises so prevalent in the front of the bookstore. I love the everyday stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s there every day in EastEnders as much as it shows up in Lynch, Leigh and the work of Alan Bennett and Tom Perrotta. These are the stories which tell us something different, something new about ourselves. They show us something challenging about what it is to be human, to be… alive. And when I read stories like these, I feel myself changed when I finish the book, the book itself becomes part of me. These are the wonderful, inspiring stories where we are never the same person afterwards.
Some Recommendations:
Tom Perrotta: The Leftovers
Alan Bennett: The Complete Talking Heads
John Thorne: The Essential Wrapped In Plastic: Pathways to Twin Peaks
Mike Leigh: Abigail's Party: 40th Anniversary Edition
