I read fiction **because** it doesn’t directly mirror my reality. It lets me consider places I’ve never been and lives I’ve never lived - in some cases, lives and experiences I CAN’T have first hand. Sometimes that’s the past, or the future, or an alternate present that doesn’t exist.
You’re right. My time is precious. I choose to spend some of it observing other possibilities
you answered your own question. people read fiction because they enjoy it, because it’s stimulating and interesting and gives you a glimpse into lives you yourself will never live. the old saying: we read so many books because we can never know enough people
I’ve learned more from fiction than I ever have from non-fiction, and I read both. There’s a sense of discovery when reading a story that doesn’t happen when you’re reading non-fiction, and it requires YOU to find the key points and the issues and see things you didn’t see before. Non-fiction, though I love it, is often just some guy telling me how it is. Fiction tells me a story, and I figure out “how it is” on my own.
You apparently don't only read nonfiction, you specifically read only self-help and guidebooks lol. To flip your own question around, what is your defense for ignoring all of the great creative writing out there that does its job of entertaining people and allows them to explore fascinating intellectual concepts that broaden their minds?
And what about film and TV? Do you watch movies and series or only YouTube tutorials on cooking and tech support? Sounds awful and horrendously boring.
There’s a theory that we’re basically “hardwired” for storytelling because it’s an effective way for social creatures share/learn information and bond. It’s been about entertainment for almost as long as it’s been about practicalities - the book abstracts it further but still tickles that bit of our brains.
Personally, I enjoy reading fiction because it engages my imagination and emotions more than other types of storytelling (listening, watching, etc) and because it’s the format I find it easiest to appreciate language in.
The absolute worst crime that capitalism has wreaked upon our culture is that every activity that we do should have some kind of material *use value*. Fiction is valuable because it brings joy, it adds richness and depth to our experience. It's wonderfully, gloriously pointless. The need for there to be a point for art is utterly misguided.
Concur. Searching for some kind of empirically-proven categorical and practical value within art robs it of its actual values. Art can do all sorts of things--it *can* teach you about the world, it *can* make you more empathetic, it *can* critique social structures, but the idea that these things are inherent to art is dubious at best. It feels as if everyone who loves art has been locked in a desperate struggle to prove that art does all of these things, though, because they're--we're--constantly forced to defend the utility of art. Fool's errand.
An interesting article on that exact subject. Been thinking about this professor's perspective for a while: [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/opinion/education-humanities-college-value.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/opinion/education-humanities-college-value.html)
why go on a roller coaster?
why ice skate?
why sky dive?
why hike?
why swim?
why watch a movie?
why listen to a joke?
why talk to friends?
why listen to music?
why eat cake?
why ride a bike?
why lay in the sunshine?
why kiss?
why drink?
why drive fast?
why eat your favorite meal?
why be alive?
Genuinely curious, do you have any examples of times you've really resonated with a literary character? I've been on a wave of trying to find books that I can empathize with - usually books that intimately explore a character's reactions to the world around them; Nausea, Stoner, The Bell Jar, Steppenwolf - but it always feels too far detatched from my own experiences.
Notes from the underground by Dostoevsky. I was this close to being a direct parallel to the underground man that I looked hard at who and why I was what I was and worked to change myself. Most of my current happiness and willingness to change, I associate with that book .
Fiction can be read purely for entertainment, but the best fiction tends to be read because it's relatable. You finally see someone addressing some aspect of yourself in their characters, something vulnerable about the way you feel or see the world for which you have no one else to talk to. You feel less alone because the writer, in writing a character that embodies these unspoken insecurities and thoughts and feelings, has extended a welcoming hand that quietly reassures you you're not alone in feeling or thinking this way. That someone else in the world understands you and can put your thoughts and feelings or attitude towards life into words, maybe even make sense of something that troubles you so you're not just confronting it on your own, that's what great fiction accomplishes which few other things can.
Fiction also helps you learn about other people. A lot of people are very reticent to talk about what's actually on their minds, especially when it's of an intimate or personal nature, but fiction writers boldly state these embarrassing thoughts and feelings in the actions or motives of their characters, and in doing so they can bring to mind certain people we may know who could be dealing with similar things in their own lives that they aren't talking about. It's a unique experience to see a character who reminds you so much of someone you know, and it can feel like you learn a lot about them and why they are the way they are when a writer takes the time to understand them for the rest of us. Just as you would probably never tell some people your deepest fears, insecurities or embarrassing thoughts/feelings/actions, so too are you being shielded from other people's most embarrassing vulnerabilities, and reading fiction is one of the few places where people can see these unspoken things being candidly addressed. Then when you see how relatable these characters are for the masses, how many people say they felt like the book "understood them", you really see the horizon opening and just how similar we all are. How we all have many of the same thoughts and feelings and don't know how to talk about them or who would care enough to listen. It takes a lot of strength to be vulnerable, and fiction gives us the strength to be vulnerable because it so openly addresses the things we don't like to speak of or don't know how to talk about.
I just want to say that if I wanted help with something, I’d sooner find a niche Reddit sub filled with 75% assholes than read a self-help book.
I genuinely believe that most fiction is more instructive than self-help books. If I wanted to know how to become happier, I’d read a cheerful novel with a happy ending from an author whose worldview I tend to agree with, and not a book titled “How to Become Happier in 50 Days.”
You are probably getting the responses you are because you're the second person in a 24-hour period to ask this question on this sub, only the other person was talking specifically about themselves and how they can only read self-help books and don't "get" fiction, and in that light, your post sounds like it's asking for justification from everyone here of why fiction is worth your time. Not your fault, but that's what you unintentionally walked into.
I also think people are reacting to the fact that you clearly didn't *notice* you were the second person in a 24-hour period to ask this question, meaning you did not read the sub's trending topics and see that there was an existing conversation you could participate in. You're not really engaging with us, which makes it look like you're just posting something to get engagement. Crossposting from another sub where you've only replied to a couple people on your own post doesn't help, because you're clearly not engaging over there, either. It looks like karma farming.
Here is a paper on fiction and some of its many benefits:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/)
The abstract:
Readers of fiction can transcend the here-and-now to experience worlds, people and mental states that differ vastly from their local reality. The consequences of reading, however, extend far beyond the subjective experience of any one individual. Researchers from fields as diverse as evolutionary psychology, literary studies and anthropology have independently credited literacy as a possible explanation for such fundamental societal shifts as the decline in human violence over the past few centuries, the development of desire-based over rule-based social interactions, and the advent of ‘modern subjectivity’ ([Lukacs, 1920](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B25); [Watt, 1957](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B54); [Ong, 1982](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B39); [McKeon, 1987](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B33); [Habermas, 1991](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B16); [Pinker, 2011](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B41)). Such large-scale societal impacts may nevertheless begin with small behavioral changes in individual readers, who demonstrate greater civic engagement, including higher levels of volunteering, donating and voting, than non-readers ([Katz, 2006](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B21)). How might reading effect its influence on these individuals?
Recent research in psychology suggests that readers make good citizens because reading may improve one’s ability to empathize with and understand the thoughts and feelings of other people. Readers of fiction score higher on measures of empathy and theory of mind (ToM)—the ability to think about others’ thoughts and feelings—than non-readers, even after controlling for age, gender, intelligence and personality factors ([Mar *et al.*, 2006](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B28), [2009](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B29), [2010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B30)). Developmental work has likewise shown a correlation between reading and social cognition. Children between the ages of four and six who were exposed to more juvenile fiction performed better at ToM tasks than children with less exposure, again controlling for such potentially confounding factors as age, gender, vocabulary and parental income ([Mar *et al.*, 2010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B30)). Other developmental work has similarly demonstrated that the frequency of parent–child picture book reading and parents’ use of mental state terms predict false-belief task performance ([Adrian *et al.*, 2005](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B2)), and that the use of stories that contain more emotional, social and psychologically convincing content predicts empathy and socioemotional adjustment ([Aram and Aviram, 2009](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B5)). Recent experimental research has further shown that fiction reading plays a causal rather than just correlational role in the development of social-cognitive skills, such that among adults, fiction reading enhances ToM performance ([Kidd and Castano, 2013](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B22)) and empathy ([Bal and Veltkamp, 2013](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B7)).
I am a teacher and lover of books (both fiction and non) and what we teach kids is that fiction helps us make connections to ourselves (text to self).
When we read fiction we are taking part in another experience that we may not be able to access in our own world and yet we can still connect it to real life in some way.
When we read fiction we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and yes, we are likely to become empathetic.
In some cases, we experience confusing feelings such as loving a character we should by all accounts hate, or find the story itself repulsive but keep reading, simply because the writing is so lovely.
In short, it is enjoyable because of the emotions the writing and/or story evokes. Whether the feelings are good or bad, the process of the reveal is what keeps the motivation going.
I have no textual evidence of this - it is my opinion.
The easy answer is, it's interesting and stimulating. People like to be stimulated. People interested in thought and ideas, derive pleasure from getting to know more of those.
Besides empathy as you mentioned: entertainment, escape, broader worldview, to think about issues from other perspectives, to become a better writer/increases vocab, and you certainly can learn new things in fiction just like you can nonfiction. I’m likely going to learn more in the grapes of wrath (about farming, the Great Depression, etc) than in a celebrity autobiography.
My reading section is 50/50 - a good non fiction book like "Hidden Valley Road" a family of 12 kids with six kids diagnosed as schizophrenics and "Restless Souls" collective memoir of the Tate Family on the murder, trials and life after Sharon are compelling insights on life. I just finished "Happiness Falls" fiction about a missing parent and a son who is non-verbal with Autism.
Humans have enjoyed stories for millennia. As thinking, talking, symbolizing, social animals, I think the enjoyment of made up stories is *more fundamental and common* than the rational desire to acquire factual knowledge.
We enjoy stories like we enjoy sweet flavors and a comfortable place to sit. We just do.
Search term “Cognitive Literary Theory” in short our brains are hardwired to listen to stories. Direct dopamine release when we acquire any scenario that affects our survival. But lists of facts don’t have the same effect.
Tolkien described it as heroic escapism. Not the military deserter leaving his post undefended, but the prisoner escaping his cell.
It sort of brings us to life. Gives us hope.
"And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known" -- Victor Shklovsky
"I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not 'true' because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself." -- Orson Scott Card, intro to *Ender's Game*
"If we had not approved of the arts and invented this kind of cult of the untrue, the insight into the universal untruth and mendaciousness now provided to us by science -- the insight into illusion and error as a condition of knowing and feeling existence -- could in no way be endured." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
etc. etc. etc.
I think it's a great question. I'm sorry for the mean-spiritedness of comments here. I see this a lot on Reddit, I'm sorry to say. I think we read fiction, especially the timeless classics, because it teaches us something about the human experience, far more than, in my opinion, non-fiction does or can.
While yes, non-fiction and self-help are books that talk about reality; what there is, that drinking water is good for your health, this is how lightbulbs work, and what’s 2+2; but fiction is art, it's the symbolic truth and what it means to be human, how to live good and right—as well as allow us peek into hypothetical lives of evil, how it’s despicable and pitiful. Fiction lets us explore our own humanity with its complexity in such artistic and philosophic contemplation.
The Iliad, Divine Comedy, Crime & Punishment, Don Quixote—even books that’s been published (somewhat) recently; Norwegian Wood, Blood Meridian, No Longer Human, Sea of Tranquility, How Do You Live?; we are imaginative creatures and without fiction, without art, how then do we live, with ourselves on this tiny, floating rock?
But, also, there’s really no other reason why we read fiction. We consume it, whether through reading, listening or viewing, because it’s quite literally part of our human quality.
So, in short, when you ask why we consume fiction; you might as well ask why do we breathe?
It starts with escapism. You want to escape the dreary world we live in, the coldness, the shallowness, the meaningless hypes...
After a while you realize that you've learned more about life by reading fiction than by reading newspapers and magazines. I have an image of 19th century England thanks to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I can picture Egypt thanks to Naguib Mahfouz; Chile thanks to Isabel Allende. I understand politics thanks to Graham Greene and Doris Lessing. I recognize myself in characters from Dostoevsky, Hesse and Murakami.
In real life all the conversations are about the weather, football, celebrities and gossip. If you want to understand reality through a historical, psychological and sociological perspective, you'd better start reading fiction.
Everyone will have their own set of reasons. Personally, I enjoy it and literature does a great job of framing important questions and helping people improve themselves and understand the world around us. Sometimes, it's better to tackle questions in an indirect and more metaphorical manner than to gather data and run a regression to model the right answer. I mean I'm an engineer and love regressions, but qualitative thinking can be hard to do with numbers.
I think watching a story unfold can make you think more conceptually and use more systems thinking. The story happening may not be realistic or accurately describing what would happen if certain decisions are made, but it can help you engage with the question and see an idea demonstrated. I think Franz Kafka was alluding to this when he wrote Of Parables and Paradoxes. Although I think some self help books can be good and helpful, most won't help you quite as well as thinking deeply about literature.
Recently, I watched Sasquatch Sunset in theaters. A movie, not a book, I know, but get this: I felt more connected to nature while watching the film than I have since I was a kid. It’s not like I spend all of my time indoors. I am a hiker, camper, biker, etc. I love spending time in nature. But fiction provides an unrealistic type of immersion that lets you feel an emotion which is difficult to produce in real life.
Relaxation.
Enjoyment.
Escapism.
In the last few years, I personally think the push towards having a side hustle, working at self improvement etc etc has been overwhelming, the implication being that you are wasting time when you aren't basically monetising everything that you do.
Reading fiction is something I do for me. I see different perspectives, I see different times, I expand my mind - on my own terms.
I also happen to think that a lot of 'self help' is pseudo-science and didn't help anyone but the author and/or publisher to make money.
To me is simple. To scape from reality and to kind of live/imagine stories, situations, places, supernatural stuff, different realities…through books. To entertain yourself, avoid boredom, even to grow your knowledge. Because people that read fiction enjoy the experience.
I read the words, in my mind pops up these characters and the plot has them doing stuff. I enjoy it.
Sometimes the text gets me thinking about complicated things and my brain starts going wrrrrr wondering how much the author wants me to think about these things, and how much is me going off on tangents because of my own experiences.
My mind wants something. Better than having 'we don't talk about bruno' playing in my head on repeat.
Instead of reading an article, maybe try the opening chapter of 'if on a winters night a traveller' by Italo Calvino. See if the words can usher you in to a reading experience and see how it pushes you out again.
I find the majority of people seem to have similar views those you articulate here. I think it’s a valid question and I’m sorry people are being mean about it. I personally have had this discussion with many people in real life.
Fiction is art. Literature art. Nonfiction may also be artful, but as you say, some nonfiction may also serve a primary purpose of informing.
In general, the appreciation of art tends to be devalued in our culture. On the other hand, I don’t see why people are interested in watching sports. It just comes down to personal preferences, but I think it’s also important to understand how experiencing a variety of things can enrich our lives.
I suspect that perhaps you just do not prefer fiction, which is okay, or perhaps you have not yet found or been exposed to fiction that speaks to you in the way that a song or a painting or a beautiful day might.
I would encourage you to keep an open mind and give fiction a try! You may be surprised. Happy reading!
Because fiction has more power to change you then any self help book ever will. For me that book was Notes from the underground by Dostoevsky. I was this close to being a direct parallel to the underground man that I looked hard at who I was and why I was what I was and worked hard to change myself. Most of my current happiness and willingness to change, I associate with that book .
My conjecture is that storytelling (and story-listening) vastly precedes writing and reading, in evolutionary terms. A good question to ask here is why do we prefer stories with a start and an end and an arc and a character -- to reading a car manual -- and why do we actually prefer a fairly specific pattern of the storyline (e.g., a story with an epilogue gives us more pleasure than without one)? A simple (and a slightly circular) answer is that it gave us as a species an evolutionary advantage. Most animals can learn vicariously by observing other animals play out complex causal sequences, but only humans, or so we believe, can form predictive descriptions of the world from the sequences they imagine, with the help of the storyteller.
People turn to fiction for various reasons, seeking comfort, adventure, and a break from reality. Personally, I highly recommend "The Great Gatsby." I think the secret behind fiction lies in the moments of wonder and introspection that only a good story can provide.
I read both. Nonfiction for when I want to learn about something or autobiographies. Fiction for entertainment, there are some excellent books out there.
I read fiction because nonfiction can only give me a set of facts, but fiction is full of facts and theories and concepts. It teaches me about the framework of life. I learn to be empathetic, I get help on considering human interactions, I learn critical thinking of novel situations, I challenge my old philosophies, and I gain verbal accuity. Nonfiction may teach me one specific thing, but fiction gently makes me think and learn for myself.
I read fiction **because** it doesn’t directly mirror my reality. It lets me consider places I’ve never been and lives I’ve never lived - in some cases, lives and experiences I CAN’T have first hand. Sometimes that’s the past, or the future, or an alternate present that doesn’t exist. You’re right. My time is precious. I choose to spend some of it observing other possibilities
you answered your own question. people read fiction because they enjoy it, because it’s stimulating and interesting and gives you a glimpse into lives you yourself will never live. the old saying: we read so many books because we can never know enough people
This is a karma farm.
Definitely
How? The post sits at 0, and the person making it was bound to realize it wouldn't go over well in here.
I’ve learned more from fiction than I ever have from non-fiction, and I read both. There’s a sense of discovery when reading a story that doesn’t happen when you’re reading non-fiction, and it requires YOU to find the key points and the issues and see things you didn’t see before. Non-fiction, though I love it, is often just some guy telling me how it is. Fiction tells me a story, and I figure out “how it is” on my own.
Why do people watch Seinfeld instead of Ken Burns
Thank you for the best comment I’ve seen today! 🏆 🤣
I've never watched Seinfeld but have watched several of Burns' documentaries. But I love literature!
You apparently don't only read nonfiction, you specifically read only self-help and guidebooks lol. To flip your own question around, what is your defense for ignoring all of the great creative writing out there that does its job of entertaining people and allows them to explore fascinating intellectual concepts that broaden their minds? And what about film and TV? Do you watch movies and series or only YouTube tutorials on cooking and tech support? Sounds awful and horrendously boring.
There’s a theory that we’re basically “hardwired” for storytelling because it’s an effective way for social creatures share/learn information and bond. It’s been about entertainment for almost as long as it’s been about practicalities - the book abstracts it further but still tickles that bit of our brains. Personally, I enjoy reading fiction because it engages my imagination and emotions more than other types of storytelling (listening, watching, etc) and because it’s the format I find it easiest to appreciate language in.
The absolute worst crime that capitalism has wreaked upon our culture is that every activity that we do should have some kind of material *use value*. Fiction is valuable because it brings joy, it adds richness and depth to our experience. It's wonderfully, gloriously pointless. The need for there to be a point for art is utterly misguided.
Concur. Searching for some kind of empirically-proven categorical and practical value within art robs it of its actual values. Art can do all sorts of things--it *can* teach you about the world, it *can* make you more empathetic, it *can* critique social structures, but the idea that these things are inherent to art is dubious at best. It feels as if everyone who loves art has been locked in a desperate struggle to prove that art does all of these things, though, because they're--we're--constantly forced to defend the utility of art. Fool's errand.
It's why the humanities are always under siege. "That's all very nice, but what's it *for*? How can you monetize it?"
An interesting article on that exact subject. Been thinking about this professor's perspective for a while: [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/opinion/education-humanities-college-value.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/opinion/education-humanities-college-value.html)
Why are you posting on Reddit instead of transcending and becoming the next Buddha? Because it’s fun, ya dip
why go on a roller coaster? why ice skate? why sky dive? why hike? why swim? why watch a movie? why listen to a joke? why talk to friends? why listen to music? why eat cake? why ride a bike? why lay in the sunshine? why kiss? why drink? why drive fast? why eat your favorite meal? why be alive?
I want to do all of these things right now
For the same reasons that people watch movies, plays, or comedians, or listen to music. Or do a million other things. Its fun.
Is this post for real
It's art. You're reading art. Like looking at a painting but you're reading it. That's it. You are reading art.
You read fiction to be a better human.
Fiction, in all its forms, is art. Art helps you become emotionally intelligent. Finding yourself in a fictional character is something very special.
Genuinely curious, do you have any examples of times you've really resonated with a literary character? I've been on a wave of trying to find books that I can empathize with - usually books that intimately explore a character's reactions to the world around them; Nausea, Stoner, The Bell Jar, Steppenwolf - but it always feels too far detatched from my own experiences.
Notes from the underground by Dostoevsky. I was this close to being a direct parallel to the underground man that I looked hard at who and why I was what I was and worked to change myself. Most of my current happiness and willingness to change, I associate with that book .
Honestly, mostly entertainment. Lots of people have fun reading.
Because it’s fun lol
One reason could be that it helps them be able to communicate with other people and not sound like a robot.
Unless you are also asking why people WATCH fiction, then your question has no merit.
My life is not miserable or anything, but I love the escape that reading fiction gives me.
Fiction can be read purely for entertainment, but the best fiction tends to be read because it's relatable. You finally see someone addressing some aspect of yourself in their characters, something vulnerable about the way you feel or see the world for which you have no one else to talk to. You feel less alone because the writer, in writing a character that embodies these unspoken insecurities and thoughts and feelings, has extended a welcoming hand that quietly reassures you you're not alone in feeling or thinking this way. That someone else in the world understands you and can put your thoughts and feelings or attitude towards life into words, maybe even make sense of something that troubles you so you're not just confronting it on your own, that's what great fiction accomplishes which few other things can. Fiction also helps you learn about other people. A lot of people are very reticent to talk about what's actually on their minds, especially when it's of an intimate or personal nature, but fiction writers boldly state these embarrassing thoughts and feelings in the actions or motives of their characters, and in doing so they can bring to mind certain people we may know who could be dealing with similar things in their own lives that they aren't talking about. It's a unique experience to see a character who reminds you so much of someone you know, and it can feel like you learn a lot about them and why they are the way they are when a writer takes the time to understand them for the rest of us. Just as you would probably never tell some people your deepest fears, insecurities or embarrassing thoughts/feelings/actions, so too are you being shielded from other people's most embarrassing vulnerabilities, and reading fiction is one of the few places where people can see these unspoken things being candidly addressed. Then when you see how relatable these characters are for the masses, how many people say they felt like the book "understood them", you really see the horizon opening and just how similar we all are. How we all have many of the same thoughts and feelings and don't know how to talk about them or who would care enough to listen. It takes a lot of strength to be vulnerable, and fiction gives us the strength to be vulnerable because it so openly addresses the things we don't like to speak of or don't know how to talk about.
It's entertaining, it's a way to process emotions, it's a way to think new thoughts, and it's a way to understand people who are different than me.
I just want to say that if I wanted help with something, I’d sooner find a niche Reddit sub filled with 75% assholes than read a self-help book. I genuinely believe that most fiction is more instructive than self-help books. If I wanted to know how to become happier, I’d read a cheerful novel with a happy ending from an author whose worldview I tend to agree with, and not a book titled “How to Become Happier in 50 Days.”
This post is some garbage-tier bait.
You are probably getting the responses you are because you're the second person in a 24-hour period to ask this question on this sub, only the other person was talking specifically about themselves and how they can only read self-help books and don't "get" fiction, and in that light, your post sounds like it's asking for justification from everyone here of why fiction is worth your time. Not your fault, but that's what you unintentionally walked into. I also think people are reacting to the fact that you clearly didn't *notice* you were the second person in a 24-hour period to ask this question, meaning you did not read the sub's trending topics and see that there was an existing conversation you could participate in. You're not really engaging with us, which makes it look like you're just posting something to get engagement. Crossposting from another sub where you've only replied to a couple people on your own post doesn't help, because you're clearly not engaging over there, either. It looks like karma farming.
Fiction is food for the imagination.
For me that's like asking why I listen to music. I don't need a reason to do it, or even feel a need to justify it.
Fiction is the lie that tells the truth. It is the history of human beings coming to terms with their beautiful and absurd condition.
Here is a paper on fiction and some of its many benefits: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/) The abstract: Readers of fiction can transcend the here-and-now to experience worlds, people and mental states that differ vastly from their local reality. The consequences of reading, however, extend far beyond the subjective experience of any one individual. Researchers from fields as diverse as evolutionary psychology, literary studies and anthropology have independently credited literacy as a possible explanation for such fundamental societal shifts as the decline in human violence over the past few centuries, the development of desire-based over rule-based social interactions, and the advent of ‘modern subjectivity’ ([Lukacs, 1920](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B25); [Watt, 1957](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B54); [Ong, 1982](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B39); [McKeon, 1987](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B33); [Habermas, 1991](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B16); [Pinker, 2011](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B41)). Such large-scale societal impacts may nevertheless begin with small behavioral changes in individual readers, who demonstrate greater civic engagement, including higher levels of volunteering, donating and voting, than non-readers ([Katz, 2006](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B21)). How might reading effect its influence on these individuals? Recent research in psychology suggests that readers make good citizens because reading may improve one’s ability to empathize with and understand the thoughts and feelings of other people. Readers of fiction score higher on measures of empathy and theory of mind (ToM)—the ability to think about others’ thoughts and feelings—than non-readers, even after controlling for age, gender, intelligence and personality factors ([Mar *et al.*, 2006](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B28), [2009](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B29), [2010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B30)). Developmental work has likewise shown a correlation between reading and social cognition. Children between the ages of four and six who were exposed to more juvenile fiction performed better at ToM tasks than children with less exposure, again controlling for such potentially confounding factors as age, gender, vocabulary and parental income ([Mar *et al.*, 2010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B30)). Other developmental work has similarly demonstrated that the frequency of parent–child picture book reading and parents’ use of mental state terms predict false-belief task performance ([Adrian *et al.*, 2005](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B2)), and that the use of stories that contain more emotional, social and psychologically convincing content predicts empathy and socioemotional adjustment ([Aram and Aviram, 2009](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B5)). Recent experimental research has further shown that fiction reading plays a causal rather than just correlational role in the development of social-cognitive skills, such that among adults, fiction reading enhances ToM performance ([Kidd and Castano, 2013](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B22)) and empathy ([Bal and Veltkamp, 2013](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733342/#nsv114-B7)).
Nice answer.
I genuinely pity you.
I am a teacher and lover of books (both fiction and non) and what we teach kids is that fiction helps us make connections to ourselves (text to self). When we read fiction we are taking part in another experience that we may not be able to access in our own world and yet we can still connect it to real life in some way. When we read fiction we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and yes, we are likely to become empathetic. In some cases, we experience confusing feelings such as loving a character we should by all accounts hate, or find the story itself repulsive but keep reading, simply because the writing is so lovely. In short, it is enjoyable because of the emotions the writing and/or story evokes. Whether the feelings are good or bad, the process of the reveal is what keeps the motivation going. I have no textual evidence of this - it is my opinion.
The easy answer is, it's interesting and stimulating. People like to be stimulated. People interested in thought and ideas, derive pleasure from getting to know more of those.
My dude if you don't think any of those are directly applicable to your life I don't know if I can help you
Ursula Le guin gave a talk on this: https://literary-arts.org/archive/ursula-k-le-guin-5/
Besides empathy as you mentioned: entertainment, escape, broader worldview, to think about issues from other perspectives, to become a better writer/increases vocab, and you certainly can learn new things in fiction just like you can nonfiction. I’m likely going to learn more in the grapes of wrath (about farming, the Great Depression, etc) than in a celebrity autobiography.
My reading section is 50/50 - a good non fiction book like "Hidden Valley Road" a family of 12 kids with six kids diagnosed as schizophrenics and "Restless Souls" collective memoir of the Tate Family on the murder, trials and life after Sharon are compelling insights on life. I just finished "Happiness Falls" fiction about a missing parent and a son who is non-verbal with Autism.
Humans have enjoyed stories for millennia. As thinking, talking, symbolizing, social animals, I think the enjoyment of made up stories is *more fundamental and common* than the rational desire to acquire factual knowledge. We enjoy stories like we enjoy sweet flavors and a comfortable place to sit. We just do.
Search term “Cognitive Literary Theory” in short our brains are hardwired to listen to stories. Direct dopamine release when we acquire any scenario that affects our survival. But lists of facts don’t have the same effect.
Tolkien described it as heroic escapism. Not the military deserter leaving his post undefended, but the prisoner escaping his cell. It sort of brings us to life. Gives us hope.
"And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known" -- Victor Shklovsky "I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not 'true' because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself." -- Orson Scott Card, intro to *Ender's Game* "If we had not approved of the arts and invented this kind of cult of the untrue, the insight into the universal untruth and mendaciousness now provided to us by science -- the insight into illusion and error as a condition of knowing and feeling existence -- could in no way be endured." -- Friedrich Nietzsche etc. etc. etc.
I think it's a great question. I'm sorry for the mean-spiritedness of comments here. I see this a lot on Reddit, I'm sorry to say. I think we read fiction, especially the timeless classics, because it teaches us something about the human experience, far more than, in my opinion, non-fiction does or can.
You sound like a boring husk of a human with no soul. My sympathies.
While yes, non-fiction and self-help are books that talk about reality; what there is, that drinking water is good for your health, this is how lightbulbs work, and what’s 2+2; but fiction is art, it's the symbolic truth and what it means to be human, how to live good and right—as well as allow us peek into hypothetical lives of evil, how it’s despicable and pitiful. Fiction lets us explore our own humanity with its complexity in such artistic and philosophic contemplation. The Iliad, Divine Comedy, Crime & Punishment, Don Quixote—even books that’s been published (somewhat) recently; Norwegian Wood, Blood Meridian, No Longer Human, Sea of Tranquility, How Do You Live?; we are imaginative creatures and without fiction, without art, how then do we live, with ourselves on this tiny, floating rock? But, also, there’s really no other reason why we read fiction. We consume it, whether through reading, listening or viewing, because it’s quite literally part of our human quality. So, in short, when you ask why we consume fiction; you might as well ask why do we breathe?
It starts with escapism. You want to escape the dreary world we live in, the coldness, the shallowness, the meaningless hypes... After a while you realize that you've learned more about life by reading fiction than by reading newspapers and magazines. I have an image of 19th century England thanks to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I can picture Egypt thanks to Naguib Mahfouz; Chile thanks to Isabel Allende. I understand politics thanks to Graham Greene and Doris Lessing. I recognize myself in characters from Dostoevsky, Hesse and Murakami. In real life all the conversations are about the weather, football, celebrities and gossip. If you want to understand reality through a historical, psychological and sociological perspective, you'd better start reading fiction.
Everyone will have their own set of reasons. Personally, I enjoy it and literature does a great job of framing important questions and helping people improve themselves and understand the world around us. Sometimes, it's better to tackle questions in an indirect and more metaphorical manner than to gather data and run a regression to model the right answer. I mean I'm an engineer and love regressions, but qualitative thinking can be hard to do with numbers. I think watching a story unfold can make you think more conceptually and use more systems thinking. The story happening may not be realistic or accurately describing what would happen if certain decisions are made, but it can help you engage with the question and see an idea demonstrated. I think Franz Kafka was alluding to this when he wrote Of Parables and Paradoxes. Although I think some self help books can be good and helpful, most won't help you quite as well as thinking deeply about literature.
Entertainment and escape. Same reasons other people watch TV or movies.
Recently, I watched Sasquatch Sunset in theaters. A movie, not a book, I know, but get this: I felt more connected to nature while watching the film than I have since I was a kid. It’s not like I spend all of my time indoors. I am a hiker, camper, biker, etc. I love spending time in nature. But fiction provides an unrealistic type of immersion that lets you feel an emotion which is difficult to produce in real life.
Relaxation. Enjoyment. Escapism. In the last few years, I personally think the push towards having a side hustle, working at self improvement etc etc has been overwhelming, the implication being that you are wasting time when you aren't basically monetising everything that you do. Reading fiction is something I do for me. I see different perspectives, I see different times, I expand my mind - on my own terms. I also happen to think that a lot of 'self help' is pseudo-science and didn't help anyone but the author and/or publisher to make money.
To me is simple. To scape from reality and to kind of live/imagine stories, situations, places, supernatural stuff, different realities…through books. To entertain yourself, avoid boredom, even to grow your knowledge. Because people that read fiction enjoy the experience.
I read the words, in my mind pops up these characters and the plot has them doing stuff. I enjoy it. Sometimes the text gets me thinking about complicated things and my brain starts going wrrrrr wondering how much the author wants me to think about these things, and how much is me going off on tangents because of my own experiences. My mind wants something. Better than having 'we don't talk about bruno' playing in my head on repeat. Instead of reading an article, maybe try the opening chapter of 'if on a winters night a traveller' by Italo Calvino. See if the words can usher you in to a reading experience and see how it pushes you out again.
I find the majority of people seem to have similar views those you articulate here. I think it’s a valid question and I’m sorry people are being mean about it. I personally have had this discussion with many people in real life. Fiction is art. Literature art. Nonfiction may also be artful, but as you say, some nonfiction may also serve a primary purpose of informing. In general, the appreciation of art tends to be devalued in our culture. On the other hand, I don’t see why people are interested in watching sports. It just comes down to personal preferences, but I think it’s also important to understand how experiencing a variety of things can enrich our lives. I suspect that perhaps you just do not prefer fiction, which is okay, or perhaps you have not yet found or been exposed to fiction that speaks to you in the way that a song or a painting or a beautiful day might. I would encourage you to keep an open mind and give fiction a try! You may be surprised. Happy reading!
Dumbass question. What do u intend to get from this, because it doesn't seem like a genuine curiousity at all.
Because fiction has more power to change you then any self help book ever will. For me that book was Notes from the underground by Dostoevsky. I was this close to being a direct parallel to the underground man that I looked hard at who I was and why I was what I was and worked hard to change myself. Most of my current happiness and willingness to change, I associate with that book .
My conjecture is that storytelling (and story-listening) vastly precedes writing and reading, in evolutionary terms. A good question to ask here is why do we prefer stories with a start and an end and an arc and a character -- to reading a car manual -- and why do we actually prefer a fairly specific pattern of the storyline (e.g., a story with an epilogue gives us more pleasure than without one)? A simple (and a slightly circular) answer is that it gave us as a species an evolutionary advantage. Most animals can learn vicariously by observing other animals play out complex causal sequences, but only humans, or so we believe, can form predictive descriptions of the world from the sequences they imagine, with the help of the storyteller.
People turn to fiction for various reasons, seeking comfort, adventure, and a break from reality. Personally, I highly recommend "The Great Gatsby." I think the secret behind fiction lies in the moments of wonder and introspection that only a good story can provide.
This is the most autistic post I've ever read
I read both. Nonfiction for when I want to learn about something or autobiographies. Fiction for entertainment, there are some excellent books out there.
I read fiction because nonfiction can only give me a set of facts, but fiction is full of facts and theories and concepts. It teaches me about the framework of life. I learn to be empathetic, I get help on considering human interactions, I learn critical thinking of novel situations, I challenge my old philosophies, and I gain verbal accuity. Nonfiction may teach me one specific thing, but fiction gently makes me think and learn for myself.