Intrusion in the age of KUWTK - II

a.k.a. the stuff Freespirit watches with the blinds drawn
a.k.a. a.k.a. Freespirit's shameful (?) secrets

Then came 2012 and Armistead Maupin. I devoured Tales of the City with a voraciousness not exhibited for a few years. Followed immediately by More Tales of the City and Further Tales of the City. Somewhere between More.. and Further.. I found the old familiar feeling creeping up - were these books intrusive as well? I knew from my research that all characters were based on real life people (nearly all fictional characters are but that is a discussion for another time) and all three books were serialized in an SF newspaper before their eventual novelization. Assuming a weekly publication, I was reading how each person, even if imaginary, had spent the prior week. At the start of book one, this kind of progress report kept drawing me back but by the end of book three, I felt like an intruder prying into the lives of Anna, Mary Ann, Mona, Michael and Brian. Granted Maupin had intended for me to pry by putting pen to paper to tell all of us the weekly goings-on in their lives and that the books were infinitely better scripted than KUWTK. But I could not shake off my sense of guilt and/or shame.

I reasoned that the episodic nature of the books gave this sense of intrusion, which if I was being honest, was probably their appeal. I could not compare this readership to the devotion with which I tuned in weekly into any of my favorite shows because these characters were real people whereas one watched a sitcom with the knowledge that all people and goings-on are make-believe. I had read entire novels before and these tend to span months/years/days in the lives of the protagonists and I did not consider them intrusive. I had also read Diary of a Young Girl without a troubled conscience. I had watched documentaries, read biographies and studied history - were these intrusive? Of course not.

I also wondered if I was truly worried about intrusion or whether my prudish self was simply unable to read about the growing sexual themes. Naturally, all of these questions were of an urgent nature and needed a definite and final answer. I volunteered myself for an experiment to get this answer. My research had also told me that Maupin influenced Alexander McCall Smith to start a similar serialization in the Scottish/English newspapers. Without knowing additional details, I assigned myself the task of reading Mr. McCall Smith's work to determine once and for all the reason(s) I could not proceed with KUWTK or Tales of the City (and forgive me Mr. Maupin for mentioning your greatest literary achievement in the same breath as KUWTK).

I was reasonably confident in completing the experiment because here was an author I knew I liked, having already established myself as an admirer of his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency work. I had had no issues with picking up at different points in the life of Mma Ramotswe to read about a few months here and there. Yes, I would get to the bottom of this.

Nothing shameful yet. Tune in for the third (and final) installment of this nail-biting series.

P.S. The exception to my sitcom analogy could be SATC. I worship the show despite knowing that Carrie is based on Candace Bushnell, a very much living and breathing person. Since I am the judge, jury, executioner though, I allow myself this intrusion because Candace Bushnell has given enough interviews that state that Carrie is very different from her in real life and she never ended up with her Big.