The Power of Storytelling
Eva Luna is a modern day Scheherazade, saving lives through the magic of fiction. Though she have the immediate threat of execution lingering over head as the stimulus for creating stories, she has life and all its unpleasantness. Eva finds the secret to making life bearable sometimes can be as simple as changing the narrative to salve the imagination. Memory and perception of the present all essentially occupy the same space, so manipulation of the imagination can transform reality.
What is Truth?
Eva’s mastery of tailoring a fictional narrative to meet expectations and hopes is put in opposition to her friend Rolfe’s approach to life. Informed by distinctly unpleasant events in his past, Rolfe adopts the perspective of the documentarian who seeks the truth by pursuing the facts. Through their collaborative efforts and friendship, truth comes to be viewed as a mere perception of reality where fact and fiction commingle and co-exist, though not always in equal amounts. The properties of truth are thus revealed as anything but finite.
Power, Corruption, and Lies
One of the factors contributing to the impossibility of establishing an objective truth composed of facts is that facts are always subject to the corrupting influence of power. The story takes place in an unidentified Latin American, but events which occur trace a historical narrative that aligns roughly with that of Venezuela. Both the historical and fictional reconstruction paint a portrait of a country whose grip on truth is constantly put to the test by the instability governments and leaders that uncertainly swing between long periods of dictatorship and short bursts of home for reform. The only thing that can be counted upon with certainty is that no matter who is power they will be corrupt and use violence to enforce their abuses of power. Every other certainty about factual reality is up for grabs as truth becomes a matter of conforming to fictions as ridiculous being forced at military gunpoint to line the streets the pay respects following the death of a despotic tyrant.
