Never Alone 3

I wondered about your first two posts about reading fiction as I distinctly remembered your saying that you don't read fiction. Finally, here in the third installment, it all comes out.

I am the opposite of your golfer friend. "It's based on a true story" is the best reason I can think of to avoid a film altogether. If I want true stories I'll look at documentaries or read the newspaper. Wordsworth said "The world is too much with us" and I agree. A little escape from reality can be a good thing occasionally. And since our Creator created things, we are able to, or get to, create things too. In that regard, a good piece of fiction is no different from a good piece of furniture. Unless you're reading Flannery O'Connor. She's always much better than a piece of furniture.

I just know you're going to disagree.

Scot,

I think that personality and how we approach life often determines whether we gravitate towards fiction or non-fiction. I don't have any firm conclusions, but I tend to see differences in people who read more of one than the other. I see great benefit in reading fiction not so much to get a truthful story as much to feel with others. As we talk about the affective side of teaching, fiction can bring you fully into the story and world of the characters and deal with the affective side of our being. Rather than just gaining facts and knowledge about what happens and how and why, we learn about people and places that we may never be able to see or experience. Fiction can give that type of experience. For example, I can read Anne Applebaum's great book "Gulag" and learn much about what happened. Since she tells stories about real people, I do come closer to feeling what it must have been like. But when I read Nabakov's "Children of the Arbat," I am drawn down into the story and begin to feel and experience more deeply than just reading accounts of history. I really believe that we Americans would fully benefit from taking time to read literature set in cultures around the world to help us learn and see what it is like in other places. Granted, it will be the perspective of one person, but it will still give a window into that culture that we can experience as we allow ourselves to be swept up into the story, characters and setting of the novel. Reading fiction has helped me greatly in my understanding of a number of cultures in which I serve in my role as a mission executive. I don't make conclusive opinions from reading these books, but they at least give me a great start on understanding that i then follow up with by asking local people about what I learned.

I understand how this is mostly a matter of preference. And I, as a avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, agree with Terry that fiction opens up the relational aspect of ideas - it makes them accessible to real life. Two questions come to mind though, which you may have answered elsewhere. Do you also not watch movies? And how does this perspective on fiction figure into your reading of say the parables of Jesus?

Nothing of play is true either but I wouldn't stop my kids from playing. How ironic too, coming from a golfer, since nothing about golf is really true, either. It's just a game!
"The power of reading a great book is that you start thinking like the author... You start to think as they think, feel las they feel, and use imagination as they would. Their references become your own and you carry these with you long after you've turned the last page."