"Ian Watson - Early in the Evening" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

Early, in the Evening - a story by Ian Watson




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Early, in the Evening home
a short story by Ian Watson
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Foreword
"Early, in the Evening" was published in the April 1996 issue of
Asimov's Science Fiction. It's a story which occurred to me all of a
sudden when a friend said to me, "So I'll see you early evening,
then," and I thought to myself: but the evening isn't early, it's fairly
late on in the day. Stories quite often occur to me this way, ordinary
reality turning inside out and upside down, then I let the story tell
itself, taking off into whatever far region it chooses, in this case the
whole history of the world and human evolution reversed within less
than 3000 words, but with a sense of place and characters (I hope).
In Consciousness Explained (consciousness being a bit of an
obsession of mine) Daniel Dennett suggests that we are all fictional
characters, telling ourselves an ongoing narrative which constructs
our life and establishes who we are. Our existence depends on the
persistence of narrative. Consciousness is the product, not the
source, of stories. Furthermore, words fight it out within us for a
chance of expression. We do not so much choose our words; within
contextual constraints the words choose themselves. So, far from
being something non-essential -- mere entertainment -- the creation
and consumption of stories is rooted deep in our very existence and
consciousness. In "Early, in the Evening" that consciousness is
progressively lost as our story un-tells itself.

This is all rationalisation after the event. The story came first, and
told itself to me as the characters and ideas deployed themselves,
each giving rise to the other. And maybe the story has a different
meaning. Maybe it muses about death.

Nor did I quite intend, when I started writing these words, that this
would be what I would say about the story.




Early, in the Evening