The Renaissance of Lying

Being who I am, this week my irresponsability took the form of a book I should not be reading. In a way I don’t care to describe, I happened to stumble upon a dialogue piece, written by Oscar Wilde in 1891. It is The Decay of Lying, and it discusses the nature and prerequisites of Art (with a capital A), and criticizes Realism as a formal and thematic movement. I was so fascinated by Wilde’s witty and familiar rhetoric - with the power to convince me of just about anything - that I could not put the book down for a long time. And while I was reading, it startled me just how much of what Wilde was saying reminded me of Sherman Alexie.

In The Decay of Lying, Wilde writes: “Bored by the tedious and improving conversation of those who have neither the wit to exaggerate nor the genius to romance, tired of the intelligent person whose reminiscences are always based upon memory, whose statements are invariably limited by probability, and who is at any time liable to be corroborated by the merest Philistine who happens to be present, Society sooner or later must return to its lost leader, the cultured and fascinating liar.”

Well, I see in Sherman Alexie that cultured, and fascinating liar whose aim is “simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure.” In the Introduction to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie gives us, I think, a beautiful example of the nature of the literature liar:

“Junior”, she said, “People are going to think that really happened.”

“But it did really happen, Auntie. At least the mouse part. It’s a true story.”

Sherman Alexie is writing about his own life. He is taking his experience as a major source for his stories, and yet, at the same time, he is lying about everything. He is a trickster, a great liar, capable of turning a fistfight on a party into a devastating hurricane. He is both wise and silly, truthful and deceiving. He understands - perhaps even better that Wilde was ever able to - just how greatly we need lies in literature… and in life. After all, Wilde knew nothing about being “a poor Indian boy growing up in an alcoholic family on an alcoholic Reservation”.

And, for that matter, neither do I; but I cherish Alexie’s lies nevertheless. His stories and his characters are more real to me than the real Alexie, with his real alcoholic family and his real alcoholic Reservation. Life and reality have no meaning whatsoever unless we create a story out of it. This is why Thomas Builds-the-Fire is such an endearing character, and why The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire makes such a wonderful story. Because it is all such a big damn lie. It is Art.