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"And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.”
~ John Waters
~ John Waters
Disclaimer #1: I disagree with the first 3 paragraphs of what I'm about to say.
Fiction is sort of a stupid genre. It's like romcom movies or pasta bolognese. 0 long-term benefits, 100% pure in-the-moment bliss.
Biographies (unlike fiction) can teach us about the lives and decisions of people we admire. Documentaries (unlike romcoms) can educate us about Planet Earth or how the moon landing never happened. And Popeye says to each more spinach (not bolognese).
But fiction? What could that provide an intelligent, ambitious, reflective individual? What can it teach, or improve, or add to the life or mind of someone as aristocratic and high brow as you or me?
The answer: everything.
Fiction contains within it the pathos of human experience, the logos of our greatest thinkers, and the ethos of societal structures.
And in case you didn't pay attention in 11th grade English, I meant to say that fiction teaches readers to understand human emotions. Each novel is a biography of a dozen great people- the author amongst them. And fiction can guide us to understand the depths of what society can be- at it's best and it's worst.
Go read Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and tell me you didn't learn a bit more about the human proclivity for sex, jealousy, and obsession. Read McKellen's Atonement and tell me you didn't feel the might of ambition and regret. Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and tell me it's not a book about stoicism and willpower.
Fiction is everything. It is imagination, and love, and heartache, and power, and questions, and even answers.
Disclaimer #2: This is just my attempt to make annually rereading Harry Potter acceptable...
Fiction is sort of a stupid genre. It's like romcom movies or pasta bolognese. 0 long-term benefits, 100% pure in-the-moment bliss.
Biographies (unlike fiction) can teach us about the lives and decisions of people we admire. Documentaries (unlike romcoms) can educate us about Planet Earth or how the moon landing never happened. And Popeye says to each more spinach (not bolognese).
But fiction? What could that provide an intelligent, ambitious, reflective individual? What can it teach, or improve, or add to the life or mind of someone as aristocratic and high brow as you or me?
The answer: everything.
Fiction contains within it the pathos of human experience, the logos of our greatest thinkers, and the ethos of societal structures.
And in case you didn't pay attention in 11th grade English, I meant to say that fiction teaches readers to understand human emotions. Each novel is a biography of a dozen great people- the author amongst them. And fiction can guide us to understand the depths of what society can be- at it's best and it's worst.
Go read Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and tell me you didn't learn a bit more about the human proclivity for sex, jealousy, and obsession. Read McKellen's Atonement and tell me you didn't feel the might of ambition and regret. Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and tell me it's not a book about stoicism and willpower.
Fiction is everything. It is imagination, and love, and heartache, and power, and questions, and even answers.
Disclaimer #2: This is just my attempt to make annually rereading Harry Potter acceptable...
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