What is the value of fiction/stories?
March 3, 2021 7:24 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for people to share their thoughts (or memorable books, articles, quotes, etc) on why consuming fiction has value. In my gut it feels valuable, I love fiction and consume a lot of it, but I find it hard to articulate why! Note: if you're the sort of person who doesn't like these sort of navel gazey posts, really not looking for "just enjoy it, whatever, chill out" type answers!
Really just what it says on the tin. I love stories. I love consuming fiction. And I realize, you know, that's "enough" in some senses. But there are a million things a person can do with their time...learn a language! Play the piano! Read a book!
The goal here is not really to "defend" consuming stories as a use of time, really...it's more that I have long felt like fiction is significant, but I don't really know why I feel that way, and so I'm curious how other people look at it. I realize "people should do what they like," and so if someone doesn't like to read, that's fine, if they do like to read, that's fine. Still, I'm curious what the "value" of fiction is to y'all. Is it just pure escapism? Enrichment of the human spirit? Enhanced empathy? And so on. I'm just trying to see if I can find words that might give voice to that feeling inside of me that so strongly feels like stories are significant, when in many respects many voices around might say that they have zero value (compared to learning an instrument or making an app or doing whatever thing).
Note: I sort of conflated fiction and stories because I see them as sort of the same thing. Fiction is stories in print, but I mean...a video game, a visual novel, a play, a movie, a tv show, it all feels sort of the same to me, in the sense of this question.
Really just what it says on the tin. I love stories. I love consuming fiction. And I realize, you know, that's "enough" in some senses. But there are a million things a person can do with their time...learn a language! Play the piano! Read a book!
The goal here is not really to "defend" consuming stories as a use of time, really...it's more that I have long felt like fiction is significant, but I don't really know why I feel that way, and so I'm curious how other people look at it. I realize "people should do what they like," and so if someone doesn't like to read, that's fine, if they do like to read, that's fine. Still, I'm curious what the "value" of fiction is to y'all. Is it just pure escapism? Enrichment of the human spirit? Enhanced empathy? And so on. I'm just trying to see if I can find words that might give voice to that feeling inside of me that so strongly feels like stories are significant, when in many respects many voices around might say that they have zero value (compared to learning an instrument or making an app or doing whatever thing).
Note: I sort of conflated fiction and stories because I see them as sort of the same thing. Fiction is stories in print, but I mean...a video game, a visual novel, a play, a movie, a tv show, it all feels sort of the same to me, in the sense of this question.
For me, a lot of the value of fiction comes from exploring The Human Condition, through a set of eyes that
aren't my own.
If you use that as a key term, you'll find lots of essays discussing how fiction has value for connecting people to their shared humanity in that way. Here's an example essay that also has some links to further reading.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:34 AM on March 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
aren't my own.
If you use that as a key term, you'll find lots of essays discussing how fiction has value for connecting people to their shared humanity in that way. Here's an example essay that also has some links to further reading.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:34 AM on March 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Stories are vaccines. You experience something dreadful, but in a version that cannot harm you. Or you experience something thrilling and delightful, but without the temptation or consequences. Either way, you become more capable of living because of what you've been through.
Also, stories are worlds*, and chances to explore worlds safely. You can comprehend, even if the comprehension is play or an illusion. You can see inside people, you can know the history around a single element, you can feel all the parts fit together. In skillful storytelling, you are induced into this state easily. That's a godlike state of awareness, and it is intoxicating.
*I don't just mean made-up worlds as in sci-fi or fantasy. Ulysses is a world; so is Sense and Sensibility.
posted by argybarg at 7:45 AM on March 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
Also, stories are worlds*, and chances to explore worlds safely. You can comprehend, even if the comprehension is play or an illusion. You can see inside people, you can know the history around a single element, you can feel all the parts fit together. In skillful storytelling, you are induced into this state easily. That's a godlike state of awareness, and it is intoxicating.
*I don't just mean made-up worlds as in sci-fi or fantasy. Ulysses is a world; so is Sense and Sensibility.
posted by argybarg at 7:45 AM on March 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
Finally, stories are, for me, a chance to get out of my head. I get sick of being stuck in here.
posted by argybarg at 7:46 AM on March 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by argybarg at 7:46 AM on March 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'll give one very personal example/anecdote as a heavy reader (though, recently, I am finding that not much fiction is capturing my attention, but I think that's another subject!)
I have read two books about gay men and the effect of the AIDS epidemic -- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai and Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves by Jonas Gardell*. Both books focus on gay men in the 1980s and 1990s and I think it's only a very mild spoiler to say that the effect of HIV/AIDS is devastating on these groups in these novels.
I cried my eyes out when I finished each of them, so I definitely got some sort of emotional catharsis. But more importantly, as a gay man in my 20s/30s who has been fortunate enough to have made deep (platonic) gay friendships, the impact of the novel storylines really hit me in a way that nonfiction reading about the AIDS epidemic hadn't really.
It's not that I didn't understand that we lost a generation of gay men to the epidemic, but something about seeing it in a narrative, story-telling sense with finely drawn characters and emotions really made it "real" for me, despite it being fiction! (And I don't mean to make this a moralizing fable, but this was also what prompted me, finally, to look into PrEP, as the very visceral thought of losing friends and life became very real.)
So I guess if I had to say, as trite as it sounds, I think one value of fiction and stories is that they really make some things come alive, especially big events (terrible and catastrophic like wars and epidemics, but also joyful ones like liberations or escapes) which are hard for many people to think about on an everyday, human scale.
*link is to the Wikipedia article about the BBC series based on it. The novel is originally in Swedish Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar and at least when I read it (in its French translation N'essuie jamais de larmes sans gants), it was not unfortunately available in an English translation.
posted by andrewesque at 7:49 AM on March 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I have read two books about gay men and the effect of the AIDS epidemic -- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai and Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves by Jonas Gardell*. Both books focus on gay men in the 1980s and 1990s and I think it's only a very mild spoiler to say that the effect of HIV/AIDS is devastating on these groups in these novels.
I cried my eyes out when I finished each of them, so I definitely got some sort of emotional catharsis. But more importantly, as a gay man in my 20s/30s who has been fortunate enough to have made deep (platonic) gay friendships, the impact of the novel storylines really hit me in a way that nonfiction reading about the AIDS epidemic hadn't really.
It's not that I didn't understand that we lost a generation of gay men to the epidemic, but something about seeing it in a narrative, story-telling sense with finely drawn characters and emotions really made it "real" for me, despite it being fiction! (And I don't mean to make this a moralizing fable, but this was also what prompted me, finally, to look into PrEP, as the very visceral thought of losing friends and life became very real.)
So I guess if I had to say, as trite as it sounds, I think one value of fiction and stories is that they really make some things come alive, especially big events (terrible and catastrophic like wars and epidemics, but also joyful ones like liberations or escapes) which are hard for many people to think about on an everyday, human scale.
*link is to the Wikipedia article about the BBC series based on it. The novel is originally in Swedish Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar and at least when I read it (in its French translation N'essuie jamais de larmes sans gants), it was not unfortunately available in an English translation.
posted by andrewesque at 7:49 AM on March 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think Umberto Eco put it very well:
“To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.”
Also here is a nice little article about the topic.
On a personal level, fiction has been world-expanding. I've learned more things applicable to my real life from made-up stories than I learned from textbooks in elementary and high school.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 7:49 AM on March 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
“To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.”
Also here is a nice little article about the topic.
On a personal level, fiction has been world-expanding. I've learned more things applicable to my real life from made-up stories than I learned from textbooks in elementary and high school.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 7:49 AM on March 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I love science, from the position of a layperson who has studied a lot of hard science but wasn't very good at it, and got a lot of personal value out of learning the history and philosophy of science. I am super into big speculative ideas, but I can only see them like out of the periphery of my vision. I get glimmers of ideas that feel intriguing, but I'm just not creative enough to think holistically about that idea without bouncing those thoughts around with a guide, someone who has borne that speculative idea out in a larger framework. So because of that, personally, I find hard sci fi fiction to be extremely gratifying. It lets me have the satisfaction of seeing a fuller picture of these very interesting ideas that I can only get an inchoate glimmer of on my own.
I get the same kind of feeling when I'm looking at art by someone like William Blake or Hieronymus Bosch. We all lived on the same earth with the same limited set of human eyes, but they picked out the weird and unsettling things that I can only get hints of and gave them shape and life and form.
posted by phunniemee at 7:52 AM on March 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
I get the same kind of feeling when I'm looking at art by someone like William Blake or Hieronymus Bosch. We all lived on the same earth with the same limited set of human eyes, but they picked out the weird and unsettling things that I can only get hints of and gave them shape and life and form.
posted by phunniemee at 7:52 AM on March 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
1. Fiction tells you a lot about the assumptions people made at the time it was written - ie, if you're reading a historical novel written in 1930 and set in 1800, you learn something about 1930s views of the 1800s. Admittedly, to do this in a truly accurate way, you'd need to read a lot of 1930s historical novels, but you can get real insight into the writer's time. You also get some general ideas about what was known/understood about history.
2. Fiction set in its own time can give you insights that aren't captured in popular history, material culture edition. For instance, I just finished a book written in ~1936 and set at a British holiday camp. It's full of odd little details (various portrayals of the entertainment that the guests organized, seaside accessories, slang, contemporary jokes). Now, I wouldn't write a paper about any of those without doing a little more research, but textual cues are such that I'm pretty sure that the writer isn't just making up popular songs and common foods out of whole cloth. Fiction doesn't replace serious study of material culture, but it's a great intro or way to engage casually.
3. Fiction set in its own time can give you insights that aren't captured in popular history, culture edition. There is a Margaret Drabble novel, The Realms of Gold, published in 1975 and obviously engaged with feminism. The protagonist's partner is explicitly described as a model man and in general is shown in the text to be good with kids, caring, sensitive, supportive of the heroine's career, etc. And he hits his wife before he leaves her for the heroine. Per the novel, she was very provoking and he didn't, you know, really hurt her. You get a strong, strong sense of how strange even the recent past is, and how hard it is to know things.
4. Fiction, like history, can tell you a lot about what questions to ask. You read about people and situations and it helps you to have a wider sense of the possibilities given the people and situations you encounter.
5. Fiction helps you learn to compare, look for patterns, predict, etc. I'm a terrible fiction reader - I can never tell who the murderer is going to be and I'm always pleasantly surprised by plots. But in theory, it helps.
posted by Frowner at 7:57 AM on March 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
2. Fiction set in its own time can give you insights that aren't captured in popular history, material culture edition. For instance, I just finished a book written in ~1936 and set at a British holiday camp. It's full of odd little details (various portrayals of the entertainment that the guests organized, seaside accessories, slang, contemporary jokes). Now, I wouldn't write a paper about any of those without doing a little more research, but textual cues are such that I'm pretty sure that the writer isn't just making up popular songs and common foods out of whole cloth. Fiction doesn't replace serious study of material culture, but it's a great intro or way to engage casually.
3. Fiction set in its own time can give you insights that aren't captured in popular history, culture edition. There is a Margaret Drabble novel, The Realms of Gold, published in 1975 and obviously engaged with feminism. The protagonist's partner is explicitly described as a model man and in general is shown in the text to be good with kids, caring, sensitive, supportive of the heroine's career, etc. And he hits his wife before he leaves her for the heroine. Per the novel, she was very provoking and he didn't, you know, really hurt her. You get a strong, strong sense of how strange even the recent past is, and how hard it is to know things.
4. Fiction, like history, can tell you a lot about what questions to ask. You read about people and situations and it helps you to have a wider sense of the possibilities given the people and situations you encounter.
5. Fiction helps you learn to compare, look for patterns, predict, etc. I'm a terrible fiction reader - I can never tell who the murderer is going to be and I'm always pleasantly surprised by plots. But in theory, it helps.
posted by Frowner at 7:57 AM on March 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
Fiction is sustenance for our interior lives.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:58 AM on March 3, 2021
posted by warriorqueen at 7:58 AM on March 3, 2021
For me professionally I learn a lot about reading and navigating spaces and places. For instance some the three-letter agency novelists actually come from that field, and their writings are a way into application of military theories of space that are otherwise not easily available. (I've learned some of this through professional channels, and friends, and have extended on it from 'fiction').
Story-writing is a safe way for authors to explore the unspeakable, the 'unthinkable', things not yet widely known (or known at all), things dangerous to write about if written as fact/truth.
- for instance buried in the fluff of two recent Lee Child's are a kind of bank using plutonium waste as much as Fort Knox uses gold, and a deep exploration (certainly for non-USians) of the US opioid epidemic.
- and Jonathan Kellerman uses fiction to explore mental illness and psychiatry - but his landscapes are poorly written!
- Andy McNab is often near-prescient about threats unknown at the time of writing.
I'm also with argybarg on this, most of my lifespace is taken up with an all-too-real world, sometimes I crave reading something non-real.
posted by unearthed at 8:10 AM on March 3, 2021
Story-writing is a safe way for authors to explore the unspeakable, the 'unthinkable', things not yet widely known (or known at all), things dangerous to write about if written as fact/truth.
- for instance buried in the fluff of two recent Lee Child's are a kind of bank using plutonium waste as much as Fort Knox uses gold, and a deep exploration (certainly for non-USians) of the US opioid epidemic.
- and Jonathan Kellerman uses fiction to explore mental illness and psychiatry - but his landscapes are poorly written!
- Andy McNab is often near-prescient about threats unknown at the time of writing.
I'm also with argybarg on this, most of my lifespace is taken up with an all-too-real world, sometimes I crave reading something non-real.
posted by unearthed at 8:10 AM on March 3, 2021
Reading fiction is one of the best ways to train empathy. When you read fiction you are seeing the interior of other peoples experiences from their point of view. There is a direct link between how much fiction you read and how much you accept that other people have internal lives.
Reading novels work to train in a way that watching video does not. If you read a book about the female detective you get to be in her head. If you watch a movie about her you are an outside observer and might be observing as prey or opponent or become totally passive and not even see her as a being with agency.
Pretty much the entire part of your fore brain is devoted to social analysis, which is to say creating stories about other people and yourself, so you understand what the heck is going on. If your boss snaps at you, that part of your brain comes up with a story that fits. Reading novels helps train you to tell these stories. Reading novels which present complex situations - the boss is abusive, the employee made mistakes, the boss is over tired from personal issues, the boss is trying to avoid playing favourites, the boss is worried that the business will fail - help us to come up with complex rather than simplistic explanations for real world events. Reading novels train us in social analysis.
Reading novels allows us to vicariously experience lives that we cannot experience in real life. Again, if you watch a documentary about mountain climbing you may end up knowing a lot about mountain climbing but you are not so deeply and directly immersed that you experience the feelings and worries and exultation. You may be stuck in a house in a pandemic but reading novels will give you an alternate life.
You can identify with what is in novels enough that it changes your own self image and your own potential. If you read about people who solve problems it can give you the mindset that you too can solve problems. If you read about people that endure it can give you the mindset that you too can endure.
Novels provide more depth than film when it comes to character and motivation and complexity. Because you can read much faster than people can speak, a novel will provide you with more of certain types of data than a film will.
Films are better at visual data - vistas and settings. However they also train your eye to regard their appearance as the norm. If you watch films that have nothing but skinny people in them you will develop the feeling that that skinny people are the norm. This means that watching films can adversely effect your self image. You can pick up the feeling that you too should look like an American movie star.
Reading fiction is a mood-alterant. Let's say you are feeling blue and grumpy about your love life, and you start reading a romance. You will entrain with the book as the characters go through misunderstandings and are sad about their relationships, and then as they move into other emotions you will too. Reading a book to forget your troubles, to take you away to another land is effective. It also provides you with perspective. If you start by being upset about doing badly on an exam and read about people struggling to save an empire, it makes it easier to feel like your exam is only a small glitch in an ordinary life and something that you can take in stride.
You may be contrasting reading against doing things that other people would admire. Wooh, is very accomplished! During pandemic they learned to talk basic Korean and can play the first eight bars of Moonlight Sonata! This is fair. Reading has probably already advanced your social status as far as it can.
You mention that instead of reading books you could play the piano. For an hour you could make noises that are sweet and transcending and then gone. For an hour you could read words that stir your emotions and engage your attention and then are gone. I don't see how playing the piano has an advantage over the reading, unless you have been reading so much that you need to broaden your activities.
Or you might be itching for a change, where you need to move your body in new ways so that your fingers learn to twinkle over the keys, or you need to bend your brain to remember new material, retrieve it and use it correctly as when you learn a language or take up studying geology. But that doesn't make reading less valuable, just less valuable to you right now.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:11 AM on March 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Reading novels work to train in a way that watching video does not. If you read a book about the female detective you get to be in her head. If you watch a movie about her you are an outside observer and might be observing as prey or opponent or become totally passive and not even see her as a being with agency.
Pretty much the entire part of your fore brain is devoted to social analysis, which is to say creating stories about other people and yourself, so you understand what the heck is going on. If your boss snaps at you, that part of your brain comes up with a story that fits. Reading novels helps train you to tell these stories. Reading novels which present complex situations - the boss is abusive, the employee made mistakes, the boss is over tired from personal issues, the boss is trying to avoid playing favourites, the boss is worried that the business will fail - help us to come up with complex rather than simplistic explanations for real world events. Reading novels train us in social analysis.
Reading novels allows us to vicariously experience lives that we cannot experience in real life. Again, if you watch a documentary about mountain climbing you may end up knowing a lot about mountain climbing but you are not so deeply and directly immersed that you experience the feelings and worries and exultation. You may be stuck in a house in a pandemic but reading novels will give you an alternate life.
You can identify with what is in novels enough that it changes your own self image and your own potential. If you read about people who solve problems it can give you the mindset that you too can solve problems. If you read about people that endure it can give you the mindset that you too can endure.
Novels provide more depth than film when it comes to character and motivation and complexity. Because you can read much faster than people can speak, a novel will provide you with more of certain types of data than a film will.
Films are better at visual data - vistas and settings. However they also train your eye to regard their appearance as the norm. If you watch films that have nothing but skinny people in them you will develop the feeling that that skinny people are the norm. This means that watching films can adversely effect your self image. You can pick up the feeling that you too should look like an American movie star.
Reading fiction is a mood-alterant. Let's say you are feeling blue and grumpy about your love life, and you start reading a romance. You will entrain with the book as the characters go through misunderstandings and are sad about their relationships, and then as they move into other emotions you will too. Reading a book to forget your troubles, to take you away to another land is effective. It also provides you with perspective. If you start by being upset about doing badly on an exam and read about people struggling to save an empire, it makes it easier to feel like your exam is only a small glitch in an ordinary life and something that you can take in stride.
You may be contrasting reading against doing things that other people would admire. Wooh, is very accomplished! During pandemic they learned to talk basic Korean and can play the first eight bars of Moonlight Sonata! This is fair. Reading has probably already advanced your social status as far as it can.
You mention that instead of reading books you could play the piano. For an hour you could make noises that are sweet and transcending and then gone. For an hour you could read words that stir your emotions and engage your attention and then are gone. I don't see how playing the piano has an advantage over the reading, unless you have been reading so much that you need to broaden your activities.
Or you might be itching for a change, where you need to move your body in new ways so that your fingers learn to twinkle over the keys, or you need to bend your brain to remember new material, retrieve it and use it correctly as when you learn a language or take up studying geology. But that doesn't make reading less valuable, just less valuable to you right now.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:11 AM on March 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Stephen King's Danse Macabre digs into this along multiple axes for horror/thriller/science fiction (including films.)
Just as one example, you could view the burst of monster movies in the 50's & 60's as a way of collectively culturally examining our newfound power to destroy the world with atomic weapons.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:20 AM on March 3, 2021
Just as one example, you could view the burst of monster movies in the 50's & 60's as a way of collectively culturally examining our newfound power to destroy the world with atomic weapons.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:20 AM on March 3, 2021
Well, there’s this. A bit cliche but not untrue. Language can be every bit as beautiful as drawing or photography.
The empathy thing is real, but I think it’s just part of a bigger thing, which is looking at things from different perspectives. Like others have said about science and history and philosophy, reading fiction that deals with those topics is much different than just reading nonfiction about them.
The desire for self-recognition is big, too. Seeing yourself as you are in a character, seeing yourself as you hope to be in a character, seeing how a character you identify with develops - all tremendously comforting. It’s why Catcher in the Rye is everyone’s favorite book in high school. Holden Caulfield makes them feel less alone and, in some cases, validated their identities.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:27 AM on March 3, 2021
The empathy thing is real, but I think it’s just part of a bigger thing, which is looking at things from different perspectives. Like others have said about science and history and philosophy, reading fiction that deals with those topics is much different than just reading nonfiction about them.
The desire for self-recognition is big, too. Seeing yourself as you are in a character, seeing yourself as you hope to be in a character, seeing how a character you identify with develops - all tremendously comforting. It’s why Catcher in the Rye is everyone’s favorite book in high school. Holden Caulfield makes them feel less alone and, in some cases, validated their identities.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:27 AM on March 3, 2021
Echoing Jane the Brown’s first point - reading fiction develops empathy. science says so!
posted by okayokayigive at 8:28 AM on March 3, 2021
posted by okayokayigive at 8:28 AM on March 3, 2021
"It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language."
posted by basalganglia at 9:39 AM on March 3, 2021
posted by basalganglia at 9:39 AM on March 3, 2021
Fiction teaches as travel teaches. So much of life is governed by accidents; to see what else our life might be, look at different accidents.
posted by aws17576 at 10:21 AM on March 3, 2021
posted by aws17576 at 10:21 AM on March 3, 2021
“This, then, is the ultimate, that is only, consolation: simply that someone shares some of your own feelings and has made of these a work of art which you have the insight, sensitivity, and — like it or not — peculiar set of experiences to appreciate. Amazing thing to say, the consolation of horror in art is that it actually intensifies our panic, loudens it on the sounding-board of our horror-hollowed hearts, turns terror up full blast, all the while reaching for that perfect and deafening amplitude at which we may dance to the bizarre music of our own misery.”
― Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory
posted by SPrintF at 10:27 AM on March 3, 2021
― Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory
posted by SPrintF at 10:27 AM on March 3, 2021
Much of literacy and English education focuses on the work of Louise Rosenblatt: The Reader, the Text, the Poem and Literature as Exploration. They are about the interaction of the reader and the text, and how meaning (and joy, etc.) comes from that interaction, i.e. a book is just a few pieces of paper until it is picked up and read.
posted by Snowishberlin at 10:58 AM on March 3, 2021
posted by Snowishberlin at 10:58 AM on March 3, 2021
And, if you are interested in multimodal literacies and new literacies, there is a bunch of research and writing that would tell you more. James Gee and Kathy Mills are people to start with. They look at how people are literate outside of books; what you get at when you conflate (and really, they are all just texts, so I don't think you are wrong) stories and fiction and video games and social interactions and social media and all of that.
posted by Snowishberlin at 11:03 AM on March 3, 2021
posted by Snowishberlin at 11:03 AM on March 3, 2021
I can only answer as someone who absolutely hated anything fictional. I only read non fiction and thought that reading fiction was pointless. I actually asked on a forum once why people bothered reading fiction because I couldn't understand the appeal. I now very much enjoy reading fiction and wish I had started reading (by choice) sooner. This is why:
1. It's one of the most immersive things I can do (and immersing myself is hard, it takes a while for me to get into a book). This is not exclusive to fiction however I feel like I am too alert when reading non-fiction. It's not absorbing to me.
2. It's a companion. This is hard to explain but when i'm in the middle of a book it's comforting. I have been on a journey with it (sorry for the J word) and there is a 'bond' there. It gives my life a bit of a 'lift' when I am out doing other things. I don't have a bond with non-fiction books.
3. It makes me more tolerant (which is something I am seeking to be). Don't get me wrong, I do struggle. I have spent time with characters in books that I would have punched the shit out of in real life. They frustrated me, I didn't want to read their stupid views or perspectives. I didn't want to empathise. I didn't want to give them anything. Then something would interest me like the use of language or a relationship I wanted to see develop. They drew me in. I could see that a person I had written off could have a sadness that I could empathise with or a funny side to their character that whilst not making up for their obnoxious flaw, made me have less of that 'I hate this person, I hate his whole self' outlook.
4. It made me realise that my feelings are not exclusive to me. Now I can get a bit of that from non-fiction but there is more of a chance to write it off - 'yeh but you only think that because of A, B,C and you don't have to go through D, E,F' - but with a fictional character, I don't think like that. This is a bit like point 3 but the emphasis is on allowing myself to accept that "my precious feelings"™ can be universal.
5. Escapism. Probably the number one thing for me so lord knows why I put it at number 5. Sometimes I don't want to be here and sometimes I hate life so I also don't want to read anything about here or anything to do with "real life". I want to be in someone else's world with a new set of feelings and ideas and desires that are totally different to mine. I don't want the "snap!" feeling. I want to be elsewhere. A bit like point 2. It's having that constant companion, a source of escapism in my pocket that I can leap into at my leisure.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 11:09 AM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
1. It's one of the most immersive things I can do (and immersing myself is hard, it takes a while for me to get into a book). This is not exclusive to fiction however I feel like I am too alert when reading non-fiction. It's not absorbing to me.
2. It's a companion. This is hard to explain but when i'm in the middle of a book it's comforting. I have been on a journey with it (sorry for the J word) and there is a 'bond' there. It gives my life a bit of a 'lift' when I am out doing other things. I don't have a bond with non-fiction books.
3. It makes me more tolerant (which is something I am seeking to be). Don't get me wrong, I do struggle. I have spent time with characters in books that I would have punched the shit out of in real life. They frustrated me, I didn't want to read their stupid views or perspectives. I didn't want to empathise. I didn't want to give them anything. Then something would interest me like the use of language or a relationship I wanted to see develop. They drew me in. I could see that a person I had written off could have a sadness that I could empathise with or a funny side to their character that whilst not making up for their obnoxious flaw, made me have less of that 'I hate this person, I hate his whole self' outlook.
4. It made me realise that my feelings are not exclusive to me. Now I can get a bit of that from non-fiction but there is more of a chance to write it off - 'yeh but you only think that because of A, B,C and you don't have to go through D, E,F' - but with a fictional character, I don't think like that. This is a bit like point 3 but the emphasis is on allowing myself to accept that "my precious feelings"™ can be universal.
5. Escapism. Probably the number one thing for me so lord knows why I put it at number 5. Sometimes I don't want to be here and sometimes I hate life so I also don't want to read anything about here or anything to do with "real life". I want to be in someone else's world with a new set of feelings and ideas and desires that are totally different to mine. I don't want the "snap!" feeling. I want to be elsewhere. A bit like point 2. It's having that constant companion, a source of escapism in my pocket that I can leap into at my leisure.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 11:09 AM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also, in fiction you and the author are making a compact: You are believing together in something that is not real. That's a powerful union, an act of shared faith.
posted by argybarg at 11:13 AM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by argybarg at 11:13 AM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am a librarian and I read fiction the same way some people watch sports (I also watch sports for this reason). In addition to what everyone else has said, it's a way to have a shared experience with a lot of other people. It's a connection to a larger group of readers. I love reading a book that other people I know have read as well and then talking about the book. This is, of course, not UNtrue for non-fiction but I think there's a way to read more into fiction, whether it's just seeing it through your own lens or relating it to a part of your life. So when I read a book I'll often hop on Goodreads or elsewhere and see what other people liked/disliked about the book, or I'll post the book that I read on twitter and talk to other people about it.
I also agree strongly with the empathy, learning, and immersion parts of it. I mainly read fiction before I go to sleep. Otherwise I have a very difficult time turning off my brain and turning it woards sleep.
posted by jessamyn at 11:27 AM on March 3, 2021
I also agree strongly with the empathy, learning, and immersion parts of it. I mainly read fiction before I go to sleep. Otherwise I have a very difficult time turning off my brain and turning it woards sleep.
posted by jessamyn at 11:27 AM on March 3, 2021
Rebecca Solnit has a lot to say about this in her book, The Faraway Nearby, and she says it so beautifully. One of my favorite books, ever.
posted by Corvid at 1:33 PM on March 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Corvid at 1:33 PM on March 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Escape.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:53 PM on March 3, 2021
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:53 PM on March 3, 2021
The most important thing about reading fiction, for me, is that I really enjoy it. I always have a book on the go. I can't imagine not having a book on the go. I've been immersed in fiction since before I can remember; I wouldn't be me without it.
Beyond that, what have I gained from it?
I think it's given me greater empathy, and greater insight into how other people think. I've walked in thousands upon thousands of different protagonists' shoes, and most of those protagonists have been nothing like me. Television shows you the outsides of people, just like the real world does; books show you their inner thoughts. That's got to be helpful in getting a feel for other perspectives.
It's also given me a really strong intuitive grasp of spelling and grammar.
And I've learned things through fiction. Background information about history, mythology, science, languages, I don't know what else. Above all, I guess, fiction has been my gateway to other cultures. A novel with a good sense of place transports you there, whether "there" is another country, another time, another society or a wholly invented world. You get to explore somewhere unfamiliar to you in the company of an expert guide, without ever having to worry about getting lost or struggling to communicate.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:35 AM on March 4, 2021
Beyond that, what have I gained from it?
I think it's given me greater empathy, and greater insight into how other people think. I've walked in thousands upon thousands of different protagonists' shoes, and most of those protagonists have been nothing like me. Television shows you the outsides of people, just like the real world does; books show you their inner thoughts. That's got to be helpful in getting a feel for other perspectives.
It's also given me a really strong intuitive grasp of spelling and grammar.
And I've learned things through fiction. Background information about history, mythology, science, languages, I don't know what else. Above all, I guess, fiction has been my gateway to other cultures. A novel with a good sense of place transports you there, whether "there" is another country, another time, another society or a wholly invented world. You get to explore somewhere unfamiliar to you in the company of an expert guide, without ever having to worry about getting lost or struggling to communicate.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:35 AM on March 4, 2021
I've been looking for something written by Diana Wynne Jones about this but the fan website where I read it seems to have lost the right to publish a lot of the stuff they had. I did find another author's blog post about her though.
Diana Wynne Jones was 10 when WWII started and in addition to the dislocations, privations and insecurity of wartime her parents were ... lacking. To the extent that most of the adults in her fiction are the sort that a wary child wouldn't trust. Here's the quote, from the Seven Stories blog:
'Diana and her two sisters had access to very few books when they were growing up. Diana’s father was unwilling to spend a lot of money on books for his daughters, so having bought the complete works of Arthur Ransome he would hand out one book a year at Christmas, for the three girls to share [as their christmas present]. The rest were kept locked in a cupboard, out of reach of the children. Diana’s mother also had very fixed opinions about what was appropriate for children to read, which meant Diana was only allowed to read what her mother considered to be ‘literature’. And anything involving fantasy or magic was absolutely not allowed! To combat this book-starved state, Diana wrote stories to read aloud to her sisters...
'In Her Own Words
“Taking someone away from the pressures under which they live is much more valuable than grinding their noses into the fact that they are, say, of the wrong race* or their parents are divorcing, or both; particularly if, while they are away, this person is given a chance to use their imagination. Imagination doesn’t just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them, or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful…I would call fantasy the most serious, and the most useful, branch of writing there is.” (Reflections, p. 158)'
I've been wondering recently whether what defines consciousness is the ability to experience a present moment, where the body is now, and at the same time know that there's another moment, a moment that's not being experienced but could be. One is hungry; one might not be hungry at another time. Because of that knowledge one can anticipate, plan how not to be hungry, savour the expected pleasure, or grow angry that it hasn't been fulfilled. This ability lies behind lying, jokes, sarcasm, so many creative acts of mind, as well as building a different future. 'You think this is so: no it isn't.' So for Jones, and I agree with her, consuming and creating fiction is building up the muscle that helps us go to a new place.
* As a Nigerian I will ask you to please hear the unspoken part of this phrase, making it "the wrong race to not be experiencing the shitty racism all around them in the context they're in now."
posted by glasseyes at 12:09 PM on March 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Diana Wynne Jones was 10 when WWII started and in addition to the dislocations, privations and insecurity of wartime her parents were ... lacking. To the extent that most of the adults in her fiction are the sort that a wary child wouldn't trust. Here's the quote, from the Seven Stories blog:
'Diana and her two sisters had access to very few books when they were growing up. Diana’s father was unwilling to spend a lot of money on books for his daughters, so having bought the complete works of Arthur Ransome he would hand out one book a year at Christmas, for the three girls to share [as their christmas present]. The rest were kept locked in a cupboard, out of reach of the children. Diana’s mother also had very fixed opinions about what was appropriate for children to read, which meant Diana was only allowed to read what her mother considered to be ‘literature’. And anything involving fantasy or magic was absolutely not allowed! To combat this book-starved state, Diana wrote stories to read aloud to her sisters...
'In Her Own Words
“Taking someone away from the pressures under which they live is much more valuable than grinding their noses into the fact that they are, say, of the wrong race* or their parents are divorcing, or both; particularly if, while they are away, this person is given a chance to use their imagination. Imagination doesn’t just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them, or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful…I would call fantasy the most serious, and the most useful, branch of writing there is.” (Reflections, p. 158)'
I've been wondering recently whether what defines consciousness is the ability to experience a present moment, where the body is now, and at the same time know that there's another moment, a moment that's not being experienced but could be. One is hungry; one might not be hungry at another time. Because of that knowledge one can anticipate, plan how not to be hungry, savour the expected pleasure, or grow angry that it hasn't been fulfilled. This ability lies behind lying, jokes, sarcasm, so many creative acts of mind, as well as building a different future. 'You think this is so: no it isn't.' So for Jones, and I agree with her, consuming and creating fiction is building up the muscle that helps us go to a new place.
* As a Nigerian I will ask you to please hear the unspoken part of this phrase, making it "the wrong race to not be experiencing the shitty racism all around them in the context they're in now."
posted by glasseyes at 12:09 PM on March 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Voracious reader. Values for me are many. To be engrossed in a story is relaxing and satisfies my need to learn. It gives me words for feelings I've had and introduces me to realizations. Recently I read a novel set in 1960s Argentina and I learned of the revolution. I was inspired to learn more about the country and its politics. I also like to discuss books with like minded people. Also, it keeps your brain active and makes you a more interesting conversationalist, hopefully.
posted by DixieBaby at 11:09 PM on March 22, 2021
posted by DixieBaby at 11:09 PM on March 22, 2021
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posted by Bardolph at 7:28 AM on March 3, 2021