Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Introduction to Unreality ... also known as 'Fiction'

I am about to lie to you.

The Appalachian Trail is 2,314 miles long, and it stretches through 15 states along the Eastern coast of the United States from Northern Florida to Maine.

Well, how was it? Did you cringe at the falsity of it all?! If you did, good job. The truth is that very few people outside a mystical group of Appalachian Trail hikers and their families, or perhaps Professors Tina Hanlon and R. Rex Stephenson, would know what's wrong with the above sentence.

The below sentence is the absolute truth:

The Appalachian Trail is 2,176 miles long, and stretches through 14 states from Northern Georgia to Maine.


The problem with that statement is that it will only be the truth for a few years. Like any unwieldy, volunteer-driven entity, the Appalachian Trail is constantly getting out of hand due to reroutes and new states trying to get in on the cashflow it provides for small towns.

It is because of this complete uncertainty that I have decided to write a book - a book that is 90% unreal. Unreality, you see, allows a great many more possibilities for a book on the Appalachian Trail because for one, it won't become obsolete in two years, and quite frankly, I don't want to bore you to death. There are already 3,749 books* out there meant to kill your inner child, steal your soul, and decapitate the escape mechanism within each and every one of us. These books attempt to convey how wonderful Appalachian Trail hikers felt as they were eating blocks of ramen, or walking through a canopied rhododendron thicket for four hours only to realize that they'd walked the wrong way. Hikers like to talk about tents a lot and perhaps, if you're lucky, how they contracted genital herpes from a lonely squirrel.

Even this year, someone is going to write a book with dreams of cashing in, and they're going to fail.

I'm not saying these authors-to-be aren't great at lots of things - hiking for instance, but hikers aren't writers. Let's examine the differences.

Hikers are good at walking. Writers are good at watching people walk, then talking about them behind their backs: "Is this guy the new Jesus?" Hikers can start fires with white birch bark and lots of wheezing. Writers, on the other hand, start fire with gasoline at midnight and then try to collect the insurance money. Hikers slay bears with pointed sticks. Writers slay bears with water cannons, laser guns, electrified cattle prods, karate chops to the abdomen, or even a magic missile.

Whose book would you rather read?

I am writing this previously unknown and unrequested version of The Appalachian Trail for you. It promises to be a completely ridiculous voyage, one in which I falsify and fantasize about what the Appalachian Trail should have been, and how it should have been created. I will falsify the historical importance of nearly every person or place associated with the Trail ... sometimes merely stretching the truth, other times ripping the very fabric of space in half.

The best part about Unreality, you see, is that there are no boundaries (did you know that Myron Avery not only built the AT, but the he was also born to shipwrecked Russian whalers and could speak with crabs?). 3,749 books on Amazon.com wouldn't lie. I, on the other hand, promise to lie so much and so perniciously, that together (you, me, and the lies) we may discover the truth - cowering in its corner, urinating on itself, hand stuffed into a bag of lime Tostitos.

See you in 2,314 miles,
Shawn Hudson


* Actual number of books may vary; there's a good chance some delusional windbag is self-publishing his divine manual on hiking that includes no less than 30 pages dedicated to how awesome he is right now, at this very instant.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my, the ceiling is falling and I will eat the stars for dessert tonight.

I'm stoked.

p.s. your cool.

Anonymous said...

We live in a world of lies. Whose to say what truth really is anyway? This will be the most original interpretation of the Appalachian Trail. I can't wait to read this book!