«
|
"Here's another group. Would you like to be at this party? For me I find
it a tad more inviting. The Harry Potterish guy at the center of the photo
looks like someone who could be a friend of mine. Still the problem remains.
While I know I have been this silly with my own group of friends, I find
myself thinking that these folks are too goofy. Would they drive me crazy?
Would I end up sitting alone in the corner nursing a drink?
There have been successful TV shows that depict groups of friends but the
trick there is that the viewer feels close enough to imagine themselves as
a member of the group (albeit a silent one). Working on a book that would
include dozens of different tribes, I faced a more difficult problem. Even
as a reporter I often found it difficult to keep my interest up as people
described their groups to me. " . . .then we met Joe. He used to work with
Ken and he dated Jenny for a short time. Joe is great, life of the party.
Just last week when we all got together and Joe said this funny thing . . ."
If I couldn't stay interested through the interviews, I couldn't imagine how
I would bring these groups to life on the page. It's not that these people
were bad storytellers, (the stories of my group sounded just the same) it's
just that we were running into the key problem: Stories of our friends are
only really interesting to those in the group."
Ethan Watters
|
»
|
