

Why I read fiction - chasingsparks
http://pathdependent.com/2010/04/04/on-fiction/

======
CaptainMorgan
This is ironic timing for me. For more than five years I haven't read a single
fiction book. Recently, I saw more than a few articles on being _well-read_
and they all offered convincing arguments. I also enjoy how this linked
article points to the positive social factors related to fiction. This was an
area I found myself lacking and after being further convinced that reading
fiction: the art of being deeply immersed in a book's story, often relating to
or putting one's self in the situation, can reduce stress - I decided to make
a change.

Recently, driving by the local library, my wife asks "what are you getting?",
to which I replied, "I think it's time I start getting back in touch with the
classics." I quickly picked up and read _Of Mice and Men_ and _The Pearl_. I
never knew how good these books were, books that I once read in high school
and at the time never understood and ultimately despised having to read. My
next read from the late Steinbeck will be _Grapes of Wrath_.

Lately though, I've been addicted to Vince Flynn's political thriller novels,
and having never read Clancy, some critics say he's a Clancy protege. Flynn's
books are incredibly difficult to put down, in my opinion.

Today, I'm about 60/40 for non-fiction/fiction reading and I find myself
happier in general. Sometimes at least for me, always reading non-fiction can
get kind of bland. Reading fiction a waste of time? Unless it's someone's
_only_ form of reading, I wholeheartedly disagree and I'm glad I got back into
them.

~~~
chasingsparks
This is just idle speculation, but I think people get turned off to fiction
because they were _forced_ to read classics in high school. Classics in high
school are mostly useless unless you are particularly mature; I was not.

Rereading those books now is a bizarre experience. I remember reading _Death
of a Salesman_ a year back in a state of disbelief. It was something I
remember absolutely hating in high school but six years later, I thought it
was brilliant.

------
ErrantX
_I asked him why he only read non-fiction, and he suggested that fiction was a
waste of his time — he read to learn, not for “mere” entertainment_

This theory is one I always find _so_ frustrating. It's amazing the amount of
information you can pick up from a good fiction book - and I have no specific
data to prove this but I believe it is easier to retain such information.

Obviously fiction does include made up stuff; but some of the best fiction is
actually well researched. Some examples:

\- Dan Brown novels are full of real history, geography and so forth.

\- Swiss Family Robinson has lots of natural history (one of my favourite
books actually)

\- Tom Clancy novels will teach you an awful lot about the military and
military hardware etc.

It might not be specialist information, but it's amazing what you can learn
from fiction :) Avoiding fiction because you can't learn anything from it is,
well, a bit short sighted.

~~~
jamesbritt
"It's amazing the amount of information you can pick up from a good fiction
book "

But that's not a compelling reason to read fiction; you'll get more facts from
non-fiction.

Fiction helps you learn how to think about the world. It provides artificial
situations for practicing empathy, moral reasoning, character assessment[0].
It exercises your imagination. It presents not just what is, but what may be.
(Yes, non-fiction often has "but what does the future hold?" conjecture.
Fiction offers this on a much grander scale.)

Deriding fiction because it's not "real" is like dismissing sports because
they're contrived competitions (e.g., they're not war or whatever sports may
stand in for).

[0] Some more modern fiction seems to be less about life and people and more
about language and writing. Some works by David Foster Wallace come to mind.
In that case, the fiction works more like puzzles or brain teasers.

~~~
mtts
_Some more modern fiction seems to be less about life and people and more
about language and writing. Some works by David Foster Wallace come to mind.
In that case, the fiction works more like puzzles or brain teasers._

Which we (as a culture, not _we_ personally) don't read that stuff. I happen
to like DFW, but I'll be the first to admit that it has little to offer
beyond, as you put it, puzzles or brain teasers.

~~~
jamesbritt
" I happen to like DFW, but I'll be the first to admit that it has little to
offer beyond, as you put it, puzzles or brain teasers."

The value in people like DFW may be like that of the Velvet Underground. They
may have had a small audience, but they end up influencing the direction of
the art form. (Brian Eno said that the VU may have only sold 10,000 albums,
but everybody who bought one started a band.)

~~~
mbrock
Wait, wait, what? This thread ... huh?

It's weird to see someone you think of as writing in a genre that kind of
combines Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Nabokov with an almost fanatic pleading for
empathy and communion -- described as someone who writes puzzles and brain
teasers!

He wrote great stuff about addiction, entertainment, alienation, human
communication, depression; stuff that to at least one withdrawn academic prone
to sadness and anxiety was enormously powerful and redemptive and
transformative.

He was a cerebral guy, he studied formal logic and math; that doesn't make him
nonhuman! Is language not a valid, "people" thing to write about? People do
have "trouble communicating," people are affected by the culture of
television, even "postmodernism" and "irony" and "solipsism" are relevant in a
deep, basic human sense for lots of (confused, lost) people.

(Granted, his nonfiction pieces are what I like best -- every essay in A
Supposedly Fun Thing is gold -- still, Oblivion, Brief Interviews with Hideous
Men, Infinite Jest are powerful books, though sometimes tragic on many
levels.)

~~~
jamesbritt
"It's weird to see someone you think of as writing in a genre that kind of
combines Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Nabokov with an almost fanatic pleading for
empathy and communion -- described as someone who writes puzzles and brain
teasers!"

I didn't mean to characterize all of DFW as obtuse metafiction. But there's
stuff in, for example, the Oblivion story collection, that is just, um,
_quirky_ , stories that focus on playing with ideas of character and
narrative.

~~~
mbrock
fair enough :)

------
chasingsparks
There is a thread going on concerning how to become "well read."
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1240262>) This post is about why
becoming "well read" is valuable. I wrote it yesterday, but another post
unexpectedly got popular, so I didn't press the publish button then.

~~~
telemachos
An interesting meta question: I wonder how much people "pick their moments" to
submit around here. I tend to post links as I see them, but I've definitely
noticed a difference in results. (Don't post very late at night EST, for
example.)

~~~
jamesbritt
'I wonder how much people "pick their moments" to submit around here'

I've started doing that. I've submitted items around midnight PST, and they
get little traction. The same story from a different link from someone else
that next morning or afternoon gets more attention. Could be the title, etc.,
but I really think it's the time of day.

------
araneae
I'm interested by the gender split. The man reads only non-fiction, and the
woman reads only fiction; the same is true for my parents. My dad doesn't read
fiction because he thinks its useless, but rather because he just doesn't
enjoy it very much.

Have others found this to be the case as well?

~~~
greg
If you look into the demographics of book sales you'll find this difference is
born out at large. I'd guess that it has more to do with the typical subject
of matter of fiction than its fact quotient. Women are more interested in
inter-personal relationships. I'd predict that science fiction is relatively
more popular among men.

------
grandalf
I read about half and half when I am actually "reading" but most of my
internet reading is nonfiction.

Might I recommend microfiction to the HN crowd. Sort-short stories (usually <2
pages) that are a great way to change your mental state into "fiction" mode
without taking up lots of time (used on amazon for $0.01).

[http://www.amazon.com/Sudden-Fiction-Continued-Short-
Short-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Sudden-Fiction-Continued-Short-Short-
Stories/dp/0393313425/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270405478&sr=8-4)

[http://www.amazon.com/Sudden-Fiction-American-Short-Short-
St...](http://www.amazon.com/Sudden-Fiction-American-Short-Short-
Stories/dp/0879052651/ref=pd_sim_b_2)

------
julius_geezer
It seems to me that the interest in much of my reading is to see a mind
observing and reflecting on the world, and that is why I find memoirists such
as Alvin Kernan, Iris Origo, John Lukacs, and Richard Gabriel so much worth
reading. Certainly that is much of the appeal of the novels of Austen,
Trollope, Wharton, Stendahl.

It is my impression that women tend to read more fiction, men more non, and
that can tell which sex stocked a bookshelf.

------
char
Well put! I'm a relatively avid reader of both fiction and non, but have
always had trouble explaining to my boyfriend (who only reads non) what
substance I get out of fiction. Reading this post definitely helped me better
articulate my feelings about this.

