The political importance of reading fiction

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:16pm

Maybe it's stating the obvious, but I never thought about it quite in this way before:

"The novel," Smiley points out, "is essentially a form in which the
interior of one person's mind comes into the interior of another
person's mind. When I read Dickens or Jane Austen, word by word they're
showing me the idiosyncratic nature of their minds. It's as if they
were inside me. There's no novel that doesn't unfold the author's
sensibility. So the more novels I read, the more sensibilities I have
in my head, and the greater my sense of empathy."

In her view, there's a political component here, since the more empathy
we develop, the more likely we are to understand opposing attitudes.
"If you have leaders who don't read novels," Smiley says sharply, "look
what big trouble you get into. They can't imagine other points of
view."
link

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:19pm

Once again the obvious:
We must read, we must read, and when we finish reading; we must read once more.
There are so many benefits, socially, intellectually, politically and there are NO drawbacks. (Unless you don't approve of the "thinkin'")

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:22pm

Also, it points out the mantra I have repeated so many times on this here board. All art is political. All art.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:26pm

Namo, that is the truest of mantras. I have been screaming that repeatedly for many years, and yet it still seems to fly above the heads of most.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:27pm

Here's a question that we've been going 'round about at my house:

If you listen to an audiobook (ie someone reads it TO you), have you read the book?

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:30pm

I would say you have heard the story, but not read the book. It may also depend on how you process information.

I find that when I read a book, my imagination is much more active, and I tend to create the images and see things in my mind a bit better. When it is read to me, it is not quite the same experience.

So for me, it would be that I have heard the story, but not read the book.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:33pm

My gut reaction is yes. The themes, ideas and characters are still in your mind. You are limited in the ability to process the richness and detail that happens when you control the speed of the imput, but the imput still occurs. (Unless it is abridged, I would destroy every edited down copy of any book if I could.)
Additionally, many have disabilities that hinder the "reading" otherwise, I would never want to berate the way they can enjoy a book.

I think being read to is an important intellectual exercise in and of itself, although mainly for children.

In the end I say it is a different, yet still powerful activity.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:34pm

Since I've found myself increasingly unable to stay awake while reading in the evening, I've taken to listening to recorded books while I drive to and from work....a total of an hour and a quarter or more a day. It allows me to experience books I'd probably not otherwise get around to reading, but it still feels vaguely like cheating.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:38pm

That use of time when you are otherwise occupied is an interesting concept on its own, Ifit.
It is certainly closer to reading than watching a movie. Maybe it should count as half a book each time, ie you need to listen twice to equal a read.

I keep thinking of the books I have listened to on Audio, they are either books I have read MANY times or books that are more simplistic than my normal tastes, since I would never read it otherwise.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:39pm

I agree with Penguin. It depends a lot on how you process information.

True story that illustrates both of my points in this thread: I was on an adventurous road trip with a buddy to go white water rafting in West Virginia. He brought some books on tape for the trip. I had never heard one before. His author of choice: Tom Clancy. Fundamentally conservative Tom Clancy. Anyway, I guess I don't process information being read to me that well, because my mind wandered a lot. Looking at the scenery, cruising truckers as they passed, that kind of thing.

As the first book was winding down, my friend said, "Who do you think did it?" "Did what?" was all I could ask. I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, somebody did something. Couldn't prove it by me.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:44pm

^That is exactly the same way for me, Namo.
I have to invest my attention in what I'm reading or I have no ability to remember it at all.

Whereas with another person I could see their attention being held and it being almost the same as reading the book.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:47pm

I have a totally different experience listening to a book while driving. I become totally wrapped up in the story. I've been known to sit in the car to hear just a little bit more. And this is true not only of fiction, but non-fiction, as well. It's a format that works well for me.

My only rule is no abridged audiobooks.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:56pm

I once bought an abridged audio version of Jane Eyre. It was 15 seconds long: "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. Reader, I married him." I felt I got the basic gist of the novel.

Kidding.

I just remembered (and then I promise not to take this thread off topic again and to get it back to the political importance of reading fiction) one of my most prized possessions that was lost in a move. My 99 cent copy of a cassette of Nancy Reagan reading her book "My Turn" that I got at Buck-A-Book. I never listened to the whole thing, but I played the title and author credit for my friends over and over. Imagine Nancy's most clipped and entitled sounding delivery as she said, "Mmmmmmmmmmy Turn, by Nancy Reagan." Oh it was SO perfect and so in character.

I would fast forward at random and hear bits and pieces like, "Patti writing that book was upsetting because it was something that JUST WASN'T DONE. Any more than my walking naked down Pennsylvania Avenue."

Oh, how I wish I still had an audio copy of that!

That was some fiction that was pretty political!

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 2:59pm

Namo - the same thing happens to me when I hear a book. My mind wanders as other things pass by visually. I tend to get distracted easily to begin with, so to actually get anything out of listening to a book, I would have to be doing nothing else. If I am going to do that, I might as well read the book.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:13pm

Trying to get it back on topic:
Our minds wander, but that does not stop us from the basic understanding that reading fiction has given us: Free thought and expression is important. We must understand the lives of others to fully live our own. We live in constant contact with others and the thoughts in their heads are as deep as ours.

Fiction can teach us this, no matter how easily distracted we are.

I find it interesting when people say they "don't read fiction," honestly it makes me suspicious, do they not want to be challenged, are they unable or unwilling to see the world as it could be, as opposed to the disaster that it is.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:23pm

I go through phases of fiction and non. Right now, for instance, I wanna get the George Plimpton oral history of Truman Capote's life and career.

Talk about political!

I do know that if I go through books quickly and move on to the next, I find my mind works quicker and sharper when coming up with associations and ideas.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:23pm

I credit fiction helping me to keep my mind open as "real people" tell me their stories. It's so tempting to always interpret what people tell you about themselves through one's own experiences and values. A good story is often the chance to experience someone else's reality (even if it is fiction) more fully than we usually are able to know all but a couple of our closest friends.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:28pm

I am a huge fan of non-fiction as well, I just hate the denegration of fiction that a great number of people I know are prone to.

We gain insights, evercise our mental capacity and learn the processes that are necessary to enact real change in the world. Plus, as those of us here know very well, we learn to be snarky and take the world with just a dash of healthy cynicism.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:30pm

Sounds good, I gotta read up on those things!

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:34pm

I am soon to be reading the "distopian trifecta" for the nth time, and some Poe. I think a miserable drunken rampage is the ticket.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 3:41pm

We read aloud to one another often. These days it is mostly passges from whatever book either of us happen to be reading, or an article that caught our fancy. There was a time when we did read whole books aloud. "Wuthering Heights" was one. As was "A Christmas Carol," which you might recall me stating in another thread. There was also Stephen King's "Pet Cemetary" one December weekend when we housesat in Bridgehampton, and the house had no heat or electricity and the this was the only, yes, only book in the house. (They owners were in the process of moving in.) So we read it by daylight, and by firelight and candlelight. Quite evocative. I have found that when I'm being read to, I can stay very enegaged, and when I'm doing the reading I am totally in the moment.

A book I just finished last evening had this to say, "Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess, is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense privilege." I heartily agreee. The value of reading a book versus listening to a book is the ability to reread a sentence or a passage, to stop and think through the meaning of the words, to savor the sound of the words as they dance around one's head, and to relish in the beauty or poignancy of the thought expressed.

As for the political nature of fiction, I would have to agree that all art is politics. The stimulation of our imaginations is one of the greatest joys of life. What is politics but the abiity of arranging ideas and articulating those ideas in a manner to stimulate others' imaginations so that action is taken.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 7:36pm

Gorgeous post, Jose.

[wexy]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 7:54pm

One thing to remember is that 80% of fiction is read by women
and since most politicians are men ...

Updated On: 10/15/05 at 07:54 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 8:04pm

Where's that statistic from? Not doubting it, just wondering.

[wexy]

Posted: 10/15/05 at 8:39pm

I read the book of essays by Jonathan Franzen where he noted that.
And in my fiction workshop at Gotham, my writing teacher agreed.