The New York Times wrote about Dolly Parton’s life as “the stuff of fable.” They elaborated on her rags-to-riches rise, and her life journey that read like a make-believe tale.
Fable is also the name of a video game, a book tracking app, an upcoming Wu-Tang documentary and a new AI agent from Anthropic.
Several folklore terms develop new lives in common parlance or are altered by shifting use. Myth, for instance, in a folklorist’s dictionary doesn’t mean “false belief” to disprove. Myth is sacred story. A myth tells us the origin of sunlight or sea and how animals and people settled into their present relationship. They are tales about how we became who we are.
Lore is another folklorist term that’s having a moment. Lore is the backbone of folklore, where we understand it as knowledge that gets passed between people. The New York Times Magazine recently explored how the word has risen in popularity to refer to revelatory backstory or personal disclosure. “Personal lore is suffering redeemed and transformed into narrative,” author Mitch Therieau explained.
It is harder for me to track how fable becomes an artificial intelligence tool than how it is the near make-believe narrative of Dolly Parton’s obituary. A folklorist usually defines fable as a story, often with non-human characters, that is shared to teach a lesson. Think Aesop’s Tales.
Perhaps we will ultimately learn valuable moral lessons from the adventures of inanimate objects like Anthropic’s Fable. I’m worried these may be darker lessons than those we’ve received from “The Tortoise and the Hare.” I’m certain they’ll be a lot less inspiring than the work Dolly Parton did for music and literacy. Rest in Peace.
inspiration this month: Spoilers
My re-reading trend continues. The TBR pile teeters as it grows but I cozied back into The Enchanted Life by Sharon Blackie last month. It was like catching up with an old friend. Like sharing how we’ve learned to live with more wonder since last we met.
This year on the Bowie Book Club we’ve been re-reading a lot. I wrote about it at the start of the year. This month we are re-visiting V. by Thomas Pynchon.
I recently learned that choosing to re-experience something with intent is called volitional reconsumption. Apparently, part of the point is the spoilers. Since I already know the plot I don’t need to spend effort tracking who-done-it or what happens next. I get to focus instead on finer points and feelings. That is what compels many of us to return to books and movies.
My sister just told me she’d tried a couple books that didn’t catch her attention so she’s going to re-read The Ministry of Time (a compulsively readable time-travel, romance, thriller I also loved) instead. Yes, she knows the big reveals already, but she’s confident she’ll enjoy it.
When I first read V. 20+ years ago, I was mostly trying to stay afloat with what on earth was going on and who was actually who. Not to say that experience isn’t still a part of reading the book this time—it is a Pynchon specialty—but I have more space to contemplate language and nuance this time through.
I will get back to work on that pile of books waiting to be read, but for now, I’m enjoying my volitional reconsumption.