If, in your time, you have ever heard four honest people disagree about what happened at a certain place at a certain time, or you have ever torn up and returned orders that you requested when a situation had reached such a point that it seemed necessary to something in writing, or testified before an inspector general when allegations had been made, presenting new statements by others that replaced your written orders or your verbal orders, you, remembering certain things and how they were to you and who had fought and where, you prefer to write about any time as fiction.
– Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast – page 236)
Hemingway, in my shallow opinion, was one of the greatest writers of all times. And I could not disagree of his opinion on fiction. This is why everything in this blog is fiction. In a certain way, life is fiction. It happens on each person’s mind and only they know what happened in their story. This is why you may find four honest people disagree about what happened at a certain place at a certain time. In the end, as in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the sum of different stories may shed some light on a certain fact or time.
Although everything I write here is fiction, everything is also as real as I can feel them. And I’d love if you shared your fiction with me and became, together with me, one of the four honest people to disagree about one same subject.
Isabele said:
Ready to be one of the four honest people and to disagree about the next subject, Renato!
Renato Guilarducci said:
Then I shall write about Paris, Isabele! =)
Isabele said:
You should, dear!
And specially for you, an Irish who wrote about Paris:
“Have you seen Paris?”
“I should think I have! I’ve knocked about there a little.”
“And is it really so beautiful as they say?” asked Little Chandler.
He sipped a little of his drink while Ignatius Gallaher finished his boldly.
“Beautiful?” said Ignatius Gallaher, pausing on the word and on the flavour of his drink. “It’s not so beautiful, you know. Of course, it is beautiful…. But it’s the life of Paris; that’s the thing. Ah, there’s no city like Paris for gaiety, movement, excitement….”
(…)
“I’ve been to the Moulin Rouge,” Ignatius Gallaher continued when the barman had removed their glasses, “and I’ve been to all the Bohemian cafes. Hot stuff! Not for a pious chap like you, Tommy.”
Little Chandler said nothing until the barman returned with two glasses: then he touched his friend’s glass lightly and reciprocated the former toast. He was beginning to feel somewhat disillusioned. Gallaher’s accent and way of expressing himself did not please him. There was something vulgar in his friend which he had not observed before. But perhaps it was only the result of living in London amid the bustle and competition of the Press. The old personal charm was still there under this new gaudy manner. And, after all, Gallaher had lived, he had seen the world. Little Chandler looked at his friend enviously.
“Everything in Paris is gay,” said Ignatius Gallaher. “They believe in enjoying life and don’t you think they’re right? If you want to enjoy yourself properly you must go to Paris.”
(Dubliners, James Joyce)