Why reading fiction matters
TL;DR
Because it is a great and unique way to build empathy. Also, it is cool, and you don’t need a reason to enjoy things.
I do not know if you have had one of those moments when you see how many books and courses and tutorials you have in your backlog; all of them waiting to help you to learn new useful skills, advance on your career, or whatever thing might satisfy your need for self-actualization. As I confront those moments and examine my priorities in an attempt to be more productive, there is one activity that I cannot leave aside when cleaning my day: Reading fiction.
The long-hanging fruits are always the same. I have stopped playing videogames for months. I have restricted my TV consumption (I decided life was too short to watch Tiger King). I still play music almost every day, but that does not count because it is like a body function by now. However, I refuse to put reading fiction in that same category of mindless entertainment, which nowadays is so beloved and hated at the same time — one of the frequent absurdities of late-capitalism.
I wanted to understand why I have this mindset. Not only to use it as an excuse but to determine whether I am just an insufferable book lover who puts Literary Fiction on a pedestal. The one that will let you know the book was better than the film. I wanted to explore my own reasons instead of googling what’s the consensus.
It might be easy to use the credit that people give to books when they consider them a higher form of entertainment. Even in the modern golden age of Television, when we compare high-quality “prestige” TV against cheap “airport” genre-fiction, the books seem to get the upper hand. Nevertheless, there is a structural aspect that gives indigestible offal like The DaVinci Code, a theoretical advantage over modern gems like The Wire.
Do not close this in anger just yet! I am not saying that one is better than the other. That might be a great clickbaity title, but I do not think they should be compared because they work under different levels and expectations.
Why it is different
As I said on my blog before, as consumers, we often ignore how the medium changes the core experience. On film and TV, we connect with the characters via the actors’ performance. They are not us, they are human beings existing right there on the screen. As spectators, we connect with actors the same way we connect with other people. Reading is a different experience. There is no intermediary between you and the characters in the book, as you are the one who interprets the situation.
The point of view of a story can change, as well as the distance between the reader and the characters. A book can be written in first-person, where we as readers find ourselves inside the head of another character. Yet, they can behave with distance and become unreliable narrators, even making us doubt their thoughts. On the contrary, we can find a story told in second-person when the narrator speaks directly to us and defines us as a different person, but in doing so, it makes us officially part of the story and bring us closer to it.
Even in the “objective author” narration (the least personal type of narrative), when the story is told as it is perceived without access to people’s minds and thoughts, we are closer to the action. It is very different from watching an actor perform. As I said, the reader makes the interpretation, which means finding an equilibrium between what the author can give, and what the readers can recreate in their heads. The author needs to be clear, but they need to provide enough space and let the reader construct their ideas. They do this by evoking feelings, senses and memories, instead of specific concepts.
That is the central notion behind the axiom “show, don’t tell.” If you read about the “hot air that feels dense when passing through the nostrils and wakes up every cell of the skin when you leave the shade,” it is more relatable than “it was a hot day.” It is because the reader can probably remember when they experienced similar weather, and create a personal connection to the text. We are then experiencing the story, even if we are not reading the characters’ thoughts. And this is happening in a limited and one-dimensional channel of communication. The simplicity of the medium brings these results because it relies so much on the reader. Of course, only great authors can make an enjoyable task out of this exchange. And sometimes, a hot day is just a hot day, and it doesn’t have to be personal because it will not bring a thing to the story.
I consider that bringing intermediaries to that relationship between text and reader, like narrators, might impair the experience. I personally feel that reading the words directly in your mind has an immense role in all of this. When you listen to an audiobook, there’s already some interpretation by a voice actor. There is a change in the rhythm of how you process ideas. I love non-fiction audiobooks, but I dislike them as a medium for fiction. I don’t have the patience for a narrator trying to deal with several character inflections. I think it is just another case of the wrong medium since I would prefer to hear storytellers doing their thing, with stories created for that purpose.
Why it matters
Ok, so we established that reading is lit and all the cool boys and girls do it. But is this enough to keep it as a priority on our hyper-productive days?
Thanks to the intimate connection between text and reader, reading might leave us with something besides a good time. It can actually help us to develop empathy. When we read, we find ourselves in such closeness with the characters that we can perceive their condition under a different optic than we usually might, even in the real world. Fiction invites us to see beyond face value, something completely opposite to what the current 24-hours news cycle encourages with actual real people. We are so oversaturated by information that our brains have no alternative but consider the humans behind those stories as mere stereotypes. It is impossible to analyze the situation beyond that.
When we read fiction, we open ourselves to think beyond what is happening at the surface. We want to learn willingly. We want to know what drives a character to be how they are and what justifies their actions. If we do not get that, we dismiss the characters as caricatures or not realistic enough. We are always searching for those inner contradictions of the characters, those “consistent inconsistencies” that are present in us, less-than-perfect beings. We want to know if there is the capacity to change — they do not even have to change to have a satisfactory arch — you just need to see them turn in the right direction.
Yes, I am saying that sometimes we give more credit to fictional characters than to real people. And that is why experiencing this is so important. How else are we going to get exposed to these kinds of circumstances where we realize there is more to learn? Usually, we only start looking at a situation in a critical way when it happens to a loved one or to us. Unemployment will be due to laziness until it hits us, and now the markets, politicians and China are to blame. A broken heart only needs a rebound until we lose what gives our existence meaning, and everything else seems dull and grey.
This willingness to learn the driving force behind fictional characters is not only limited to charming and likeable people. We appreciate villains that are complex and are driven by misguided feelings or harsh situations. It does not mean that we are trying to justify their actions; we just want to learn how somebody can end up in that kind of situation. How often do we have that same perspective in the real world?
Why it does not always work
Ok, so we established that reading also makes you better than the rest. But you might not be convinced that reading Twilight is better than watching a documentary.
First, let me say that in the spirit of this “cult of productivity” scenario in which we want to spend most of the day doing something fruitful, you will still need time to rest and focus on other things. It is very well known that productivity suffers not because we are not working enough on a task, but because the time we use working is not well spent. We should not cut leisure moments but instead, get rid of the distractions that mess with the rhythm of work.
Also, if we spend those small windows of opportunity to relax in activities similar to what we do in our “productive time,” we might feel that we are not resting. For lack of a better term, the need to switch “gears” or “mental lanes” seems like a real necessity. This will tell us that if you are learning and absorbing new information through the day, you should reconsider watching that documentary and instead do something more mechanical. And if you have been reading all day, you should disregard the advice of this post and do something different.
Previously I mentioned The DaVinci Code or Twilight as examples of books, which means they should also have the potential to create this deeply personal connection, right? I can only talk for The DaVinci Code, but after finishing it (and realizing it was a rip-off of Holy Blood Holy Grail), I felt that nothing I have discussed here ended up happening. And it is not only because it is objectively a poorly written book — I actually enjoyed that cliffhanger-ridden hot-mess while it lasted — , but because it is part of a type of literature that rarely covers what I’m discussing here.
Genre Fiction means that a work of fiction is created to fit into a specific category. Romance, science fiction, horror, western, fantasy, those are examples of genres. Literary Fiction, on the contrary, is not defined by genre expectations. The assumption is that Genre Fiction is based mostly around the plot, while Literary Fiction is all about characters. Because of that, Literary Fiction usually deals with complex topics and the characters are highly developed.
That is the main reason why it is evident that not every single piece of fiction will grant empathy superpowers. Not all books will give you enough to try and understand the characters. Their situations might be irrelevant or too rooted in fantasy to relate. However, do not reject all Genre Fiction just yet.
The widespread consensus is that Genre Fiction is less elevated than Literary Fiction. I do not care about that because some of my favourite books ever are Genre Fiction. And in reality, the line dividing them is really blurry. Some of the best literature is “textbook” Genre Fiction, and some Literary Fiction can easily fit into a genre. For example, 1984 is clearly a science fiction work, same for Infinite Jest and The Handmaid’s Tale. Some people consider Love in the Time of Cholera a romance novel, while nobody can deny Blood Meridian is a western. Furthermore, not all Literary Fiction is devoid of plot.
Coda
After reaching my conclusion and looking for online confirmation, I came up with this article from Harvard Business Review. They support the “case for reading fiction” with a study that concludes that avid readers can deal better with ambiguity and do not feel the urgency of “cognitive closure.” This means they do not rush into conclusions and are more open to change their minds at the onset of new information.
This makes me think that this horrible culture of over-productivity does not focus enough on the effects of what we consume. I like to think of fiction as the fats in our food, there is such an overabundance and variety of it that it generally gets a bad rep, but they are vital to our function as humans, and we are not getting enough of “the good ones.”
Go and consume a big fat piece of great fiction. It will make you good.
