STRANGER THAN FICTION

Whether a work is a piece of fiction, or one man's peace is a work of truth matters little here nor will be long remembered. Feelings can be hurt. Names can be changed. But in the end, no reader ever becomes the wiser after the petty shuffle of literary camouflage has been cracked like a giant oyster. If an author dubs his contribution a work of fiction, while based on reality, then why change the names of those characters who fit the billing as clearly as any emperor's new array of clothing fits the emperor? It's already been declared fiction, after all. Whether the Joe Smith in a work of fiction resembles a Joe Smith kicked to the curb in Hometown USA matters nary a nub. Again I ask, how can curbside Joe whine about slander derived from a work of fiction? The simplicity of this question and its even simpler solution is easily discovered: Should the likeness an author paints upon his own fictitious Joe Smith prove false as it concerns the real Joe Smith, so be it. No harm, after all, work of fiction, right? A work of fiction is confined, defined and refined by its author's creative biases, not the concerns of some curbside Joe Smith. Are names and situations in a bustling planetary grope, like fingerprints or DNA samples, unique and proprietary? If however an author's fictitious Joe Smith does indeed resemble the real Joe Smith, how can Joe Smith sue for libel and slander on matters of truth even if depicted in a work of fiction? Truth is truth, and not a matter for libel and slander. The old ways of passing judgment on humanity are evaporating. All truth is fiction and all fiction is soon written into truth. Considering this truism, can't we just get on with it?