Truth in Fiction
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:33 pm
Those of us who visit this site know that there are many stories that are taken to be flights of fancy but are in fact a deadly truth. Secrets passed down to us over the ages disguised as fiction. It is not unusual for those of us who are in the know to scour over ancient tales of ghosts, faeries, vampires, were-beasts and other alleged myths.
Sure we all know to check these ancient works for lost knowledge but what of more recent literature? I think that in tales published as recently as the last hundred years is full of hidden truths. In our own living memory there may have been authors who have encountered things beyond the natural world and have tried to tell the world in a way that would allow the message to get out. Other authors may have come across some enchanting story from their family history or an 'urban legend' that they have reworked as fiction, never realizing that there was more than a kernel of truth to what they were reporting.
I think perhaps that relatively recent fiction is sometimes overlooked by some of us. Therefore I am opening this thread to present and discuss stories published in the last hundred years that board members know or believe to have some surprising kernel of truth.
Naturally, I will go first.
There is an old story that was published in 1958 by Phillippa Pierce. Its name is Tom's Midnight Garden and is a classic piece of children's literature. I myself enjoyed it as a child.
The premise of the story is a young boy by the name of Tom is sent to live with his aunt and uncle after his brother catches the measles. They live in a flat with no garden and an elderly land lady.
Tom is lonely because he is not allowed out to play. Supposedly due to the lack of exercise he is up later than he ought to be and is thus able to hear a clock strike 13 times in the middle of the night. Going to investigate he finds a sunlit garden. He is not the only person in the garden as a young girl named Hatty is also present.
Tom visits Hatty and the garden many times but each time he does, she gets noticeably older while her remains the same relative age. Eventually she becomes too old to 'play such games'. She is a young woman being courted by a young man. Tom will not be able to visit again.
But that is not their last meeting. Indeed, the garden wasn't even where they first met as the old land lady turns out to be Hatty, near the end of her life.
So why do I bring up this story? Well, there are elements that do hearken back to older tales. Especially the time displacement that occasionally occurs when one is dealing with the fey. There is also the idea of visiting other worlds that are presented as some sort of fanciful paradise.
There is also the fact that I am aware of a similar story. In this story, there is also a young boy, although when it starts he is a bit older than Tom. Nevertheless I will continue to refer to him as Tom. He doesn't visit a hidden garden at the stroke of 13. Some other fanciful device made of brass and crystals is the means of transportation for this tale. The catch is (and there is ever a catch in these stories, isn't there?) that it must recharge between trips and can only ever transport one person.
It is not only the means that is different but the location. The location is not a garden but a library. A library that is the repository for all knowledge ever. Every fiction and every truth can be found here. Tales told to many and a few all share shelf space here.
Like the garden however, the library had another resident (although I don't really know if resident is the best word to use here). Like Hatty, this girl was about the same age as the Tom of this story. Thus I will refer to them both as Tom and Hatty.
Unlike the protagonists from "Tom's Midnight Garden", these two children aged at different rates between meetings. Sometimes Hatty would be older, sometimes they would be the same age but eventually, it seemed as though Tom was the one getting older, quicker.
As Tom got older, he began to perceive certain things that were odd. For example, Hatty would never let him explore outside the library. Indeed, she wouldn't even show him where the door out of the library was for fear he might attempt to circumvent her rule. In fact she was quite cross with him one time when he arrived and she wasn't about so he had gone exploring. Afterwards she made him promise to always meet her in the same place and to never stray until she was there to guide him.
There were dangers beyond the library, dangers that perhaps she had to face but she would not let him even know about. Yet she could not always hide the bruises or the flinching at every noise. She could not always hide the pain.
As wondrous as he had first found the library, Tom realized that there was a hidden darkness here and that his friend was suffering for it. So when he was old enough and mature enough for self-sacrifice, he offered her his device so she could escape. It was a solution that she would not accept as it would trap Tom there to face the darkness that she had tried so hard to hide from him.
Tom knew enough about the device by then that he felt that with a little help from his brother, it might be possible to make a second one. So he made Hatty a promise. He promised her that some day he would return and when he did, he would save her from the darkness that was beyond the darkness.
He did return with two devices but the library was destroyed to its foundations. Every page or scroll burned, engulfed in the blackness of ignorance. There was no sign of Hatty but there was plenty evidence of darkness all about.
Interestingly, Tom did grow up and find a way to save Hatty.
There can be no doubt that this story is impossible by the rules of natural science. Yet even those who believe in the supernatural might find the tale hard to accept and perhaps even say it was impossible. So does that make this something that is beyond the supernatural?
Sure we all know to check these ancient works for lost knowledge but what of more recent literature? I think that in tales published as recently as the last hundred years is full of hidden truths. In our own living memory there may have been authors who have encountered things beyond the natural world and have tried to tell the world in a way that would allow the message to get out. Other authors may have come across some enchanting story from their family history or an 'urban legend' that they have reworked as fiction, never realizing that there was more than a kernel of truth to what they were reporting.
I think perhaps that relatively recent fiction is sometimes overlooked by some of us. Therefore I am opening this thread to present and discuss stories published in the last hundred years that board members know or believe to have some surprising kernel of truth.
Naturally, I will go first.
There is an old story that was published in 1958 by Phillippa Pierce. Its name is Tom's Midnight Garden and is a classic piece of children's literature. I myself enjoyed it as a child.
The premise of the story is a young boy by the name of Tom is sent to live with his aunt and uncle after his brother catches the measles. They live in a flat with no garden and an elderly land lady.
Tom is lonely because he is not allowed out to play. Supposedly due to the lack of exercise he is up later than he ought to be and is thus able to hear a clock strike 13 times in the middle of the night. Going to investigate he finds a sunlit garden. He is not the only person in the garden as a young girl named Hatty is also present.
Tom visits Hatty and the garden many times but each time he does, she gets noticeably older while her remains the same relative age. Eventually she becomes too old to 'play such games'. She is a young woman being courted by a young man. Tom will not be able to visit again.
But that is not their last meeting. Indeed, the garden wasn't even where they first met as the old land lady turns out to be Hatty, near the end of her life.
So why do I bring up this story? Well, there are elements that do hearken back to older tales. Especially the time displacement that occasionally occurs when one is dealing with the fey. There is also the idea of visiting other worlds that are presented as some sort of fanciful paradise.
There is also the fact that I am aware of a similar story. In this story, there is also a young boy, although when it starts he is a bit older than Tom. Nevertheless I will continue to refer to him as Tom. He doesn't visit a hidden garden at the stroke of 13. Some other fanciful device made of brass and crystals is the means of transportation for this tale. The catch is (and there is ever a catch in these stories, isn't there?) that it must recharge between trips and can only ever transport one person.
It is not only the means that is different but the location. The location is not a garden but a library. A library that is the repository for all knowledge ever. Every fiction and every truth can be found here. Tales told to many and a few all share shelf space here.
Like the garden however, the library had another resident (although I don't really know if resident is the best word to use here). Like Hatty, this girl was about the same age as the Tom of this story. Thus I will refer to them both as Tom and Hatty.
Unlike the protagonists from "Tom's Midnight Garden", these two children aged at different rates between meetings. Sometimes Hatty would be older, sometimes they would be the same age but eventually, it seemed as though Tom was the one getting older, quicker.
As Tom got older, he began to perceive certain things that were odd. For example, Hatty would never let him explore outside the library. Indeed, she wouldn't even show him where the door out of the library was for fear he might attempt to circumvent her rule. In fact she was quite cross with him one time when he arrived and she wasn't about so he had gone exploring. Afterwards she made him promise to always meet her in the same place and to never stray until she was there to guide him.
There were dangers beyond the library, dangers that perhaps she had to face but she would not let him even know about. Yet she could not always hide the bruises or the flinching at every noise. She could not always hide the pain.
As wondrous as he had first found the library, Tom realized that there was a hidden darkness here and that his friend was suffering for it. So when he was old enough and mature enough for self-sacrifice, he offered her his device so she could escape. It was a solution that she would not accept as it would trap Tom there to face the darkness that she had tried so hard to hide from him.
Tom knew enough about the device by then that he felt that with a little help from his brother, it might be possible to make a second one. So he made Hatty a promise. He promised her that some day he would return and when he did, he would save her from the darkness that was beyond the darkness.
He did return with two devices but the library was destroyed to its foundations. Every page or scroll burned, engulfed in the blackness of ignorance. There was no sign of Hatty but there was plenty evidence of darkness all about.
Interestingly, Tom did grow up and find a way to save Hatty.
There can be no doubt that this story is impossible by the rules of natural science. Yet even those who believe in the supernatural might find the tale hard to accept and perhaps even say it was impossible. So does that make this something that is beyond the supernatural?
