Attack Of The 50-foot Verbose Mutant Killer Fountain Pens From Mars | Page 4

and demons that made us
shiver from their hideaways in the shadows. They explored the limits of
their world and inscribed on the mental map 'here be dragons'.
As they entertained, so they informed. These storytellers taught the
ways of the world, transmitted culture, gave meaning and a sense of
belonging to the people sat around that ancient blazing fire. Throughout
the millennia, the story has reflected our lives and our existence. As
with our ancestors, the search for meaning still lies behind our urge to
tell a story - even though we seek to preserve the words on the medium
of paper, or even of quantum digits.

In our fragmented, restless society that search for meaning can be as
little as the author's own personal quest. By writing, they may seek to
resolve personal traumas. Beyond that, they seek to impose meaning on
the senseless world around them. As readers, we look to be entertained
- to escape from the banalities of the world - and in that sense we are
little removed from our ancestors. Like them, we want to be enthralled
and released into a world of mystery and adventure. And if in some
way we can find some kind of meaning, so much the better. No matter
that the sense is far from profound, as long as it reinforces and
reassures our own personal shield against reality and the uncertainties
that surround us.
Beyond this there is surely the desire to be noticed. In the days when
the material and the spiritual worlds were separated by no more than a
thought, the story was the means by which humankind danced among
the Gods. We strive to be noticed, to make our mark in a cold and vast
cosmos. Perhaps, as he wove his visions into words, that ancient
storyteller perceived his Gods and Spirits on the outer edge, listening
along with his all too human audience.
The same is true today, in a way. The writer craves attention. Not of the
Gods, perhaps. Ours is too secular a calling. We crave the attention of
our peers, we wish to make our mark in the human world. The story is
our graffiti - 'Kilroy is here!' we are crying - our plea for attention in an
indifferent world.
Even as we have gained with the advent of writing, we have lost
something. Though our stories have flourished with the time machine
that is writing, we have lost our ability to provide a sense of community,
we no longer transmit those cultural messages that bind us together as
people. That isn't to say that stories still can't - and don't - perform that
function. But as our world has grown ever more complex and
fragmented, so too has the human experience, and so too has the
unifying potential of storytelling. We see ourselves reflected in a
broken mirror.
Yet this provides a wealth of material for the storyteller. The very stuff
of drama: conflict. Not merely the conflict of every day life set within

the narrow parameters of a particular sub-culture - but between
sub-cultures, between class. We have a new age of heroes and villains,
new demons and angels in our modern myths. That is the rich and the
poor, the struggle for human dignity to raise itself above poverty and
the struggle against those who enforce it.
A rich vein indeed for the storyteller, if only they choose to delve deep
beneath its crust. For all too often the world of storytelling reflects only
a narrow view, a view of only one facet in our seething society. The
novel arose on the backs of a triumphant bourgeois class. It helped to
shape their view of the world, gave them a sense of identity and
purpose even as other writers gave shape to their ideas of business and
social organisation. Like those ancient storytellers, these magicians of
imagination carried forth their cultural values to infuse others in their
struggle to pull down an aristocratic world.
Where are the storytellers in a similar vein today? Where are those who
dare to dream of a world beyond the narrow strictures of the
commercial, and seek to disseminate their dissent through characters
and stories and enthralling, captivating words?
Underground. Existing here and there, far from the light of the
flickering fire, making do with candlelight and the glow of the moon
until their time comes to bask in the full limelight. That is where the
hunt leads, the story plays with us in the ongoing drama of humanity's
struggle for freedom and dignity.
The chase is still one of meaning and understanding, but in the face of
an ever more complex - yet paradoxically simple - world. And with it
the story still develops, the real and the imaginary still bubble and