In my experience (which is a nice way of saying "This is my opinion; I am not a scientist or a lawmaker"), people read fiction for one of two reasons: escapism or learning.
An excellent book will teach you something about the world or yourself and, by extension, deepen your empathy and offer more roundness to your personal whole.
Escapist reading allows a reader to completely vacate reality with the understanding that the reader will not return improved except by way of having just taken a mental vacation from life.
One is not better than the other, necessarily, but an only-escapism diet will leave your brain and heart all lethargic and flabby and useless in the real world. You'll expect miracles and magic and endless reward for little to no effort. An only-learning diet will leave you fit as fuck but also fairly pretentious. You'll have a hard time not being cynical and smug. The key is in moderation. There are authors who can straddle the line. You can read a variety of books to achieve balance. Yin and yang and all that.
Twilight is pure, ridiculous escapism. Meyer straddles zero lines. THAT'S FINE. But being obsessed with the series is like, I don't know, the mental equivalent of the Super-Size Me experiment. You can't live like that. I barely survived the one read-through.
Anyway. I'm crossing my fingers for a fully edited reissue in which nothing is "much to [Bella's] chagrin."
Oh my goodness and all the smoldering. I read it because so many of my students raved about it. I teach college. I teach "adults." When I was done, my copy had red pen all over it because I couldn't help myself. There's definitely that Dan Brown factor mentioned above, but to be honest I couldn't look past the issues in the writing to really get that sense.
Sure. I mentioned Stephen King elsewhere; his short fiction is outstanding. I feel like he improves when he practices restraint. Just After Sunset is my favorite collection, but he has several and also sells Singles on Kindle for a few bucks. Neil Gaiman is brilliant. Joyce Carol Oates leans more serious, but I find many of her stories to be thrilling or scary, and often subtly humorous. I like Anne Rice a lot, but I cannot vouch for Prince Lestat, which I finished last week and did not like. I like Lionel Shriver, Amy Tan, Ian McEwan, Gillian Flynn. Vonnegut, Douglas Adams. It's difficult to recommend anything specific because I don't know what you like to read, but these are a few authors I tend to enjoy.
Any of the more respected sci-fi/fantasy authors almost have to do this well. Prominent examples off the top of my head include Kurt Vonnegut, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Iain M. Banks, Brandon Sanderson, etc.
I would say Asimov. I, Robot has been the most influential book in my life since I read it. On one hand you have a fantastic vision of robotics as industrial machines. The book will make you want to become a robopsychologist. On the other hand, his writing has strong themes about the nature of life, asking you to consider if the imitation of life is the same as life. His writing is both fantastic and philosophical, which is why he's my favorite author.
Though I think you could argue the same thing about Philip k. Dick.
Hey Twilight will teach you something. It just happens to be "be disturbingly obsessed with the first guy you like, but be sure to wait till marriage for sex." Also there's the random SAT words thrown in there for good measure.
In all seriousness, I wish someone would do a well edited and heavily abridged version of the series so I can read the rest of them.
people read fiction for one of two reasons: escapism or learning.
That's what Donald Shimoda said about movies (or lifetimes) in Richard Bach's Illusions. Not that I disagree with you at all; I was merely reminded of it.
Also from Illusions:
"You are quoting Snoopy the Dog, I believe?"
"I'll quote the truth wherever I find it, thank you."
This is exactly what my mother always preached to me growing up. Most parents applauded the fact that their child was reading, but no, not mine. I consistently had my nose in a book. More often in a fantasy/sci-fi/fiction novel; I loved escaping reality. Mother always nagged on the fact I should be reading more sensible, learning, non-fiction type of material instead of the fantasy crap. Boy was she right. You gain absolutely nothing burying yourself in a "completely" fictitious reality. Wish I had found more authors that straddled the line you speak of containing both elements, as to just one as a child.
I wouldn't dismiss entire genres of fiction as escapism. Much of fantasy/sci-fi works as commentary on social, religious or political issues. (Stranger in a Strange Land was used as the foundational text for an actual religion!) It really comes down to the level of craft and whether the intent of the author is to whisk the reader away from the tedium and stress of everyday life, or not. YA as a whole is seeing marked improvement in quality as more and more authors aim to write learning fiction for younger readers. I thought Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children had excellent takeaways in that it encourages bravery in experience, acceptance, and coping with loss. It's very clearly a book for younger readers and the premise is ostensibly escapist, but the craft was well-developed enough that the book can serve as a learning experience. Even in romance, a historically lightweight genre filed with tropes and terrible, terrible things, you can find books that really do speak to real-life conditions. That's the kind of distinction I intended to make; I wouldn't knock an entire swath of available books as McDonald's for the brain.
Oh, no I understand that. Definitely not knocking the whole genre, just the little niche of crap I was into. There definitely are valuable fiction books out there and I love stumbling across them now as an adult. I guess I'm just commenting on the incredible amount of books out there to which you gain no benefit from reading.
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u/JoyceCarolOatmeal Dec 08 '14
In my experience (which is a nice way of saying "This is my opinion; I am not a scientist or a lawmaker"), people read fiction for one of two reasons: escapism or learning.
An excellent book will teach you something about the world or yourself and, by extension, deepen your empathy and offer more roundness to your personal whole.
Escapist reading allows a reader to completely vacate reality with the understanding that the reader will not return improved except by way of having just taken a mental vacation from life.
One is not better than the other, necessarily, but an only-escapism diet will leave your brain and heart all lethargic and flabby and useless in the real world. You'll expect miracles and magic and endless reward for little to no effort. An only-learning diet will leave you fit as fuck but also fairly pretentious. You'll have a hard time not being cynical and smug. The key is in moderation. There are authors who can straddle the line. You can read a variety of books to achieve balance. Yin and yang and all that.
Twilight is pure, ridiculous escapism. Meyer straddles zero lines. THAT'S FINE. But being obsessed with the series is like, I don't know, the mental equivalent of the Super-Size Me experiment. You can't live like that. I barely survived the one read-through.
Anyway. I'm crossing my fingers for a fully edited reissue in which nothing is "much to [Bella's] chagrin."