The Role of an Author as Seen in 'Nim's Island'

For a long time I had absolutely no idea what to blog about. I have opinions on everything including the topics we’ve discussed this week, so writing is usually no problem for me, but how to tie the topic in with something in culture? Then out of the blue a movie came to mind. The 2008 film Nim’s Island has an excellent example if the balance between an author completely detaching themselves from the work they are writing (as Eliot says they should) and needing to put some of themselves—some honesty—into it (as seems generally excepted today.

In the movie there is an author, Alexander Rover. She is a famous adventure novelist who happens to be an agoraphobic and never leaves her house. In this respect she must detach herself from the books she writes because there is no way she could do the things and go on the adventures that her hero—Alex Rover—does in all her books. She can’t even walk ten feet outside to her mail box, let alone trek across deserts or through jungles. But Alexandra (Alex) is able to write such convincing novels that no one realizes that she is really a middle aged, agoraphobic who carries around several bottles of hand sanitizer at all times. The main character, Nim, even emails Alexandra for help when she gets stuck alone on the Island her she and her father live on. She does this thinking that Alex Rover is really the adventure hero from the books. As T.S. Eliot said in his essay Tradition and Individual Talent “The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.” Alex Rover the author’s personality is nothing like Alex Rover the adventurer’s, yet her books are no less convincing for it. Alex is able to—or in a way has to—push out her own feelings, fears and weaknesses in order to write about things she could never do, thus confirming Eliot’s theory. Or so it seems.

But Alex has a problem. Her next book is due soon and she cannot finish it. It may seem at first glance to be a simple case of writer’s block, but I think it goes deeper. In the past Alex has been able to push herself out of her writing and write widely successful books. But now it seems that Alex’s limited supply of ideas has run dry because she has no experience and none of herself (save perhaps an inner longing to break free of her fears and have an adventure) to draw from and thus cannot continue writing. Alex must face her deepest fears and go on an adventure of her own. She must put herself into her writing, to be real and honest within the text. In doing this she not only breaks free of her fears but also fulfills that inner longing in order to finish her latest novel. She can at last be honest, to poor part of herself out onto the page because she has something to draw from.

This film is an excellent example of balance. In my opinion balance is the key to most things in life including, as the film clearly shows, writing. An author must be able to both detach themselves and their personality form their writing in order to write about concepts, characters and events of which they have no personal experience or similarities, but they must at the same time be able to make their writing real and honest, as Alex does in both facing her fears and having an adventure and also in her deep longing to break free of her fears. These very real emotions and experiences have a definite and prominent place in Alex’s writing, as does the ability to detach herself from her writing. Balance. Ideally there is balance between diet and exercise, work and play, rationality and feeling and in the same way there must be balance between emotional detachment and emotional attachment. Life and writing are best when they are balanced.