As an aside, Dave Eggers in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius mentions in his introduction, How To Read This Book, that if you are one of those readers who doesn’t enjoy non-fiction you should simply pretend that the characters don’t exist and that the events never happened.
Personally I will happily read anything that is well written fiction or non-fiction. I often find that non-fiction works are more “tedious” than fiction for several reasons. Many non-fiction writers seem to believe that because the story they are telling is true it is inherently entertaining and because they will only vist the subject matter once they are loathe to leave anything out.
I must add that Into Thin Air and Seabiscuit are books I would recommend to anyone.
Try tricking yourself. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is a fantastic fiction that reads like an autobiography. In fact, if I hadn’t known it was fictional, I would have thought it was completely true to life. Check it out.
If I recall correctly, the contemporaries of Herodotus were skeptical of the writing of history for edification.
A history could only tell us of what happened; it takes myth or poetry to tell us what it means.
To sound even more condescending, good fiction can illustrate more truths than mere facts can.
(That being said, except for some Carl Hiassen and Corey Doctorow I read this summer, I cannot tell you the last fiction I enjoyed. Most of my recent reading has been of the “a terrible thing happened during the yacht race / fishing trip / naval excercise” genre.)
So I’ve always wondered, when I hear of fiction avoiders like you, how did you get this way? Were you read to as a child…did you get a story before bed? Do you dream? Many of the fiction-haters I’ve run across or heard of have a fundamentalist religious background where they have been actively discouraged from enjoying fiction…though if they knew more about writing and religion they’d look a little more sceptically at the Bible…and I ay this as a devout Christian!
What if you don’t know it’s fiction? Can you xdistinguish between real accounts and fictional accounts that look real? If so, you can find work vetting books and discovering hoaxes like Clifford Irving’s “autobio” of Howard Hughes.
Seriously, can’t you simply pretend that a fictional work is juast about someone who might be real?
90% newspapers and magazines
5% fiction
5% non-fiction
I only have so much time in a day to read and I generally enjoy newspapers and magazines more than fiction.
For every 5 works of fiction I start, I probably only finish 1. And then, when I do find something I like, I read it in a couple days so I don’t spend much absolute time reading fiction. If I don’t like it pretty soon after it starts and find myself wanting to get back to it, I’m not going to spend the time.
When I was in high school and college, I read tons more fiction. I was always looking for something, always had a book with me. Sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, horror, literature, everything. I think it just took more and more to impress me until I was wasting so much time starting books I wouldn’t finish.
Also, so much “fiction” nowadays seems to be about some poor Afghani or Bangladeshi or Peruvian who grew up in extraordinary circumstances. And that’s the book.
The books that have really captured me over the last few years have been non-fiction but dramatic.
That said, I am currently enjoying the Sin City trades right now though. I borrowed them from a neighbor. And my wife just finished reading Empire Falls which I’m going to try to start tonight. We’ll see how it goes.
Actually I don’t remember being read to as a child. Although my childhood was a perfectly happy and “normal” one. I read to my kids though.
I dream very much, thank you.
I am NOT a religious person whatsoever. In fact I am an atheist.
I’m a fiction avoider. I don’t like movies, either. I simply don’t have that suspension of belief mechanism that allows me to enjoy that sort of thing.
But I can be riveted by a true story. I’ve read entire non-fiction books in one sitting.
I think you guys are nuts, in a nice way of course. Hating fiction is one of the things on my list of “do not date”.
To me, it speaks that your imagination is damaged or lacking. As you say this yourself, I don’t think I’m being insulting, and I don’t mean to insult by simply stating how I feel.
One of my most visceral requirements in a SO is reading at least some kind of fiction, and not romance novels either.
I have no idea why people conflate “reading fiction” with “having a good imagination”. I think that’s a big myth.
If anything, I’ve noticed the opposite. The most imaginative people I’ve ever known – those who “what if” the world, those who really challenge your ideas, those who see things a different way than the norm – were not those that very often had their noses buried in works of fiction.
Does your inability to suspend belief span to other media?
For example, do you find no suspense in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Did you not care about anyone while watching Casablanca? Do you find CNN more suspenseful than Saving Private Ryan? Do you laugh at the absurdity of Python’s Holy Grail or do you find it pointless?
What about live theater? Can you enjoy Shakespeare? Cats?
I don’t share the OP’s reason that I can’t get involved because some made it up. I don’t enjoy it as much because I cannot find the fiction that I enjoy.
I simply ENJOY reading non-fiction more that fiction.
It may have to do with my interests. I enjoy reading/learning about espionage, military legal and political subjects.
Espionage/Military- I’d so much rather read Ghost Wars or The Main Enemy than something by Clancy or some campy Bond inspired novel.
Legal- Why read a formulaic thriller entitled The Brethren by John Grisham (ok, I occasionally still read Grisham because I can finish it in a weekend) when I can read The Brethren, an inside look at the US Supreme Court, by Woodward and Armstrong?
Politics- Most political novels have an idealized president/candidate who always does the “right thing” (read: the author’s political preference) and yet bears no burden. In other words, implausible. Why read that when I can read about the Clinton presidency in Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House by John F Harris?
I’d estimate that my non-fiction to fiction ratio is 3 to 1. But I don’t object to fiction as a medium. I just like non-fiction BOOKS better.
I actually like Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was well done: with a comedic component. Star Wars too, originally, but I haven’t watched any of the “new” Star Wars movies.
I didn’t like Saving Private Ryan. It wasn’t so much a movie, as it was a mockumentary. Why not watch some real WWII clips?
Live Theatre … well my experience in live theatre is limited to Les Mis and Tommy. I liked them both. Of course Les Miserable is based upon a true story which I read as a kid. And I’m a huge Who fan, so that’s a no-brainer.
Now, Monty Python, I love. In fact I love comedies in general. I guess my problem is watching, and reading, stories that are “supposed” to be real in nature. I can suspend my disbelief for the absurd, but not for the real-life dramas.
Probably doesn’t make much sense, but there ya’ go. That’s me.
I’d be rather curious as to how you’d react to Dave Eggers’ A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius, which don’t ask mentioned. The novel is essentially an autobigoraphy, except throughout the author repeatedly emphasizes that he has taken liberties with his account, and at times, it’s quite obvious that he is descending into wild fantasy. Would you be able to enjoy the work as an unusually written memoir, would you enjoy it until the blatantly fantastical situations arose, or would the air of uncertainty (did this actually happen or not?) pervading the entire work destroy your ability to enjoy it?
I am guessing that your problem is not a lack of imagination, but simply that you seem excessively concerned with plot. Plot is a very basic thing that, outside of the hyper-fantastical (eg. Sci-fi, fantasy, etc.), is not very relevent to the substance of a piece of writing. If you did not know that The Old Man and the Sea, or Catcher In The Rye or The Great Gatsby were fictional, how could you tell? In each case, the reason the works are great comes from the author’s abilities to tell the story, and these abilities are equally applicable in works of non-fiction. Hemingway, for instance, worked as a journalist before he wrote fiction. How would The Old Man and the Sea be improved if the narrated events were a real life account retold by Hemingway?
I, too, beg to differ with the not reading fiction=lack of imagination. I’m very creative; I write songs and can write a pretty good essay if I sit down to it. I’d say that, being a creative person, I’m more turned off because I can see what’s happening on the creative end of things and just go “meh”. Been there, done that.
But I don’t hate fiction. Good writing is good writing, and I can appreciate that. I just don’t pursue it, since the subject matter rarely interests me.
I’ll say that for me, even though I love crave and devour fiction of all genres with glee, it is rare for me to find anything of high enough quality for me to be immersed in. It is getting increasingly rare that I spend any time reading as a result.
Frank Herbert was mentioned, and Tolkien. Both favorites of mine, but most other fiction or fantasy is either so poorly written or so unimaginative that I can’t get past the first chapter.
I get into frequent arguments with my parents, who think The DaVinci Code is high literature, and I think is poorly written drivel. I can’t get far enough past the horribly simplistic writing and narrative style of Dan Brown to ever achieve enjoyment or any suspension of disbelief.
So, that said, can the dislike of fiction that th OP and others have simply be very high standards? Can it just be you haven’t stumbled across the quality that your brain and imagination requires?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with disliking fiction. You’re into what you’re into. I am completely unmoved by visual art. When I look at a Rembrandt or Picasso, I can understand why someone would like it in an abstract, intellectual level, but it doesn’t do anything for me personally.
That said, a few words in defense of literature, or at least some reasons why I like lit, and think it’s worthwhile.
1.) language One reason I read is just for the pleasure of watching a master of prose riff on the english language. Prose, if done well, can be as beautiful as poetry. At it’s best it can make you see the world in a new way. You come on a passage and you say “Yes, I never thought of it like that but that’s exactly how it is!”
2.) insight A good fiction writer should have the same insight into human nature as a good psychologist, and can create characters with the same deep individuality as real people. This gives fiction freedom that non-fiction doesn’t and shouldn’t have. If I’m writing a history of the Titanic I can only go as far into the heads of the people involved as the public record allows. But if I’m writing a novel, I can re-live the disaster as it was experienced by someone living through it. In Lolita Nabokov convincingly takes us into the mind of a narcissistic pedophile. Humbert Humbert is a reprehensible person, but is fascinating to read about. Through him you gain insight into a certain character that you won’t gain from reading true crime stories. Updike’s character Harry “rabbit” Angstrom takes us through the past few decades of American life in a way that no social history could accomplish.
3.) Escapisim I read Science Fiction not to learn more about the world, but to get away from it for a while. (Though there is a lot of wisdom in the better science fiction books.) Dan Simmons’ Hyperion series is a tapestry of marvels that takes me out of the tedium of my own life for a while, and leaves me with a sense of wonder and amazement. YMMV, of course.
I couldn’t stand this book. It came highly recommended by an English professor but I could only read about 30 pages before throwing the damn thing across the room. It was way, way, way too annoyingly self-aware and ‘cutesy’ for my tastes. I don’t even think Eggers was able to write the page number without some kind of clever and oh-so-precious comment. I understand the book was a huge hit and plenty of people loved it…but I couldn’t take it.
I should point out here, though, that I have no problem at all with books of fiction. I do read them and enjoy them for the most part. And I have no problem with suspension of disbelief when it comes to movies. But when it comes to the written page, I simply prefer non-fiction. But in no way do I consider it a “this or that” type of argument.
