“On Real: A Brush Stroke Essay” by Paul Hughes

It’s something of a romp through reality, or about reality. 

Writer Paul Hughes describes his long essay / short book On Real as a brush stroke. In fact, he used “Brush Stroke” as a brand for this first of what is planned to be a number of essays. As the name implies, Hughes doesn’t take a deep dive into a particular point or aspect of the real. Instead, he lightly covers an extended territory of ideas, published works, quotations, and observations. 

 

It’s something of a rollercoaster ride, and like all good rollercoaster rides, when it’s over, you want to do it again. In the case of On Real, you want to read it again.

 

And where else do you start considering the real or the true than with fiction. It’s a contradiction: something made-up can be more truthful, or more real, than a statement of fact or the reality that is staring you in the face this morning. And, as Hughes points out, “mythological” doesn’t mean false, even if the myth is non-factual. 

 

G.K. Chesterton (or Paul Hughes?)

That’s how his brush stroke starts. And the brush moves at breakneck speed across art, literature, life, anecdotes, God, and more. Hughes draws from The Brothers Karamazov, The Velveteen Rabbit. Don Quixote, and Eugene Vodolazkin (a Ukrainian / Russian writer whose works I’ve come to deeply admire). He quotes Willy Wonka and Tom T. Hall. He sees Christopher Hitchens as one who “often saw to the core of things,” but didn’t do the right thing with what he saw. And Hughes quotes T.S. Eliot, of course (why did I say “of course”?). 

 

On Real is a wide-ranging discussion that will often take you down a rabbit hole (we’re all Alices in Wonderland at times). But when you come out again, you see and understand things you didn’t before. And you understand something deeper about how what is real and what is unreal, and how the unreal often contains the truth lacking in the factual. 

 

A good example is the photo I’ve included with this post. It’s the one Hughes uses on his blog, Poet and Priest. He acknowledges that the photo isn’t of him (it’s G.K. Chesterton). But that photo will tell you more about Hughes that the typical blog bio will. The only other (factual) thing I know about him is that he’s a writer who lives in the West. That could be the western United States, or it might be “West” as in
“Western civilization.” Either way, it fits.

 

Some Related Readings 

 

The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World by William Egginton.

 

The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real by Margery Williams.

 

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

 

Julian Barnes: ‘Flaubert could have written a great book about contemporary America – Rachel Cooke at The Guardian. 

 

All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Portland Sobers Up: After years of disorder and misgovernance, the City of Roses is taking steps to reverse its decline – Michael Totten at City Journal. 

 

Up from “Parenting” – Glenn Arbery at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Earned Smugness of Ulysses Readers – Mark Solomons at The Spectator.

Poetry Prompt: Monarch Butterfly's Wildflower -- Callie Faye at Tweetspeak Poetry.