Movie: The Woman in the Fifth

‘The Woman in the Fifth’ is a movie based on a novel in the same name. It is the story of struggles of a writer in getting reunited with his daughter and family in the backdrop of his mental illness. At one point in the movie, we hear a statement which is often heard in many places. The idea is that the more personal disasters and tragedies a writer goes through, the more depth his writing acquires. The same can also be said about some other artisans like painters, singers and musicians. After I heard about this and realized it to be a commonly accepted proposition, I have sort of started disliking these creative fields. It is true that the more personal experiences a writer will have, one would be more in command of the variety and depth of one’s creations. But to make it a precondition or assumption about its necessity looks unfair. I think if there is one most powerful skill that a writer has, it is one’s power of imagination and observation. It can easily be believed that any writer can’t have all the varieties of personal experiences oneself, that exist in this world. There comes the importance of observation – writers can simply role-play or map someone else to develop a character for one’s book. Or else one can simply imagine and imagination knows no boundaries… In that respect power of imagination compensates for or even transcends the benefit of personal experiences in the literary fields.

It is not necessary that a writer or an author should have gone through personal tragedies oneself to get to write about things. It is definitely an advantage, but I not necessarily a precondition. Though, very often we notice that debuting authors do miracle with their first book but never get to repeat the magic afterwards. I think many times it is because the first book was based on their personal experiences and hence had that depth; while next books were written on demand and used more of imagination than experiences. If a writer is not that brilliant, one’s second or next books won’t be of same quality as one’s first book. But there have been so many wonderful authors who have written about character dissimilar to the ones experienced in their personal lives, through the power of observation and imagination.

If one needs a failed personal life to become a celebrity writer, I think it is not worth it. A life lived in simplicity and containment, which often leaves new members for our human civilization who inherit the noble virtues and ethics, is very precious. Fame is temporary and is a double edged sword.