Look! For once, I'm actually posting something, and in my own journal too, not rambling uninvited in other people's. I said I'd do this, oh, only 5 months or so ago, which you'll admit is hardly any time at all, really. For reasons of length, I'm dividing it into three parts, cleverly getting thrice the posts from the one meme, and allowing me to feel triply accomplished.
1. I find I read considerably more non-fiction than fiction, something I always feel guilty about, even though I can't put my finger on why. Do other people who like non-fiction feel that way? If you predominantly read fiction, do you suffer from an obscure sense you should be reading more non-?
2. Further to a point raised by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
phoebe_zeitgeist, I wonder whether I partly prefer non-fiction because I find it easier to identify books I'll like? I know which subjects I'm interested in, I can see which other books are referred to in books I already have, I can generally tell from a quick browse whether I think the author may have something interesting to say, whereas if I find myself in the fiction aisles of a bookshop, I look around in confusion, and have no idea where to start. I don't have that problem with fanfiction - I know whose recs I trust, I can narrow down a list of links fairly accurately by username and summary, and I can trust my judgement based on a few lines or paragraphs. With published fiction, however, I somehow managed to get out of practice recognising the identifying signs of stories I'd like. (Actually, I wish Amazon recommendations were more helpful in that regard. I know people complain about it being quirky, but my complaint is that it's not quirky enough. I want it to look at the books I already like and recommend authors I wouldn't have thought of but but whom I might actually like, not assume that if I like one book that could be fitted in a genre, I'll like anything at all in that genre, no matter how dull or how lacking in the qualities I admired in the first book.)
3. Sometimes I run into people who refuse to read anything by any author they discover holds some view they disapprove of. I really, really don't understand this. Setting aside the question whether it's desirable to expose yourself only to the ideas of people you know agree with you, what on earth have these people been reading that they expect the natural content of authorial belief is close to theirs? Unless you limit yourself to books written very recently by writers from similar cultural backgrounds, it must, surely, be obvious that much of what you read will have been written by people with whom you would be in profound disagreement on one moral question or another? If you consider the diversity of views across the geographic expanse of the world and a temporal span of several thousand years ... well, if I got rid of every book where I had reason to believe I disagreed with the author on some important issue, I'd have shelf space for an awful lot of ornaments.
4. I always want to know how far through I am when I'm reading. It makes me edgy and unhappy if there's no constant visual cue (I hate journal layouts where a whole list of tags and links and previous entries makes every page long, even if the entry is only a few hundred words). It's not a matter of trying to find time to read something, I just like to know where I am in the text. Which brings me to ... in theory, I should want an e-book reader so much: I've always dreamt of an entire library you could take around with you anywhere. In practice, I find I like physical books. Also, I think of myself as having a poor visual memory, but perhaps it's more that it's selective, and only applies to things I'm truly interested in, such as books: I can normally remember what the spine of a book looks like, roughly how far through the book the information I'm looking for was, often whether it was on the right or left hand page, and about how far down. Doing away with the tangible object and replacing it with a search function just isn't as satisfying (although where I'm looking up new information, rather than re-finding something I remember reading before, I have been known to search the snippet preview on Google Books to get relevant page numbers if the books in question has a poor index). I can make excuses about drm and file compatibility, but the truth is, I just like books to be objects as well as information.
"His mind's eye sees them quoted on the bottom third of a right-hand page in a (possibly) olive-bound book he read at least five years ago." Edward Gorey, The Unstrung Harp
5. Much in stories serves some function other than strict realism (eg structural, thematic, stylistic etc). The reader must ask what each part is being used to do, rather than assuming it is meant to be mimetically realistic (and mimetically realistic of every aspect of that thing). To take an example where non-realism is at the service of theme: in the Iliad, injuries tend to be either fatal or readily recovered from; this is obviously not the case in actual war, but it allows for a clearer and starker contrast between the pleasures and comforts of mortal life and glory with concomitant death. In other words, it is an editing and a stylisation of reality in service of expressing a particular truth: there are other worthwhile truths to be expressed, and it would be quite reasonable to write a work dealing with a truth involving crippling but non-fatal injuries. It would indeed by quite reasonable to write such a work in dialogue with the Iliad: what would not be reasonable would be to think that the existence of such truths constitute a useful criticism of Homer. The possibility of living with a serious injury, whether physical or mental, may be an important truth, but it doesn't follow that everyone else has a duty to express that truth at every possible opportunity, or that a work that ignores that truth in the service of the clear expression of another is somehow wrong or wicked.
1. I find I read considerably more non-fiction than fiction, something I always feel guilty about, even though I can't put my finger on why. Do other people who like non-fiction feel that way? If you predominantly read fiction, do you suffer from an obscure sense you should be reading more non-?
2. Further to a point raised by
phoebe_zeitgeist, I wonder whether I partly prefer non-fiction because I find it easier to identify books I'll like? I know which subjects I'm interested in, I can see which other books are referred to in books I already have, I can generally tell from a quick browse whether I think the author may have something interesting to say, whereas if I find myself in the fiction aisles of a bookshop, I look around in confusion, and have no idea where to start. I don't have that problem with fanfiction - I know whose recs I trust, I can narrow down a list of links fairly accurately by username and summary, and I can trust my judgement based on a few lines or paragraphs. With published fiction, however, I somehow managed to get out of practice recognising the identifying signs of stories I'd like. (Actually, I wish Amazon recommendations were more helpful in that regard. I know people complain about it being quirky, but my complaint is that it's not quirky enough. I want it to look at the books I already like and recommend authors I wouldn't have thought of but but whom I might actually like, not assume that if I like one book that could be fitted in a genre, I'll like anything at all in that genre, no matter how dull or how lacking in the qualities I admired in the first book.)3. Sometimes I run into people who refuse to read anything by any author they discover holds some view they disapprove of. I really, really don't understand this. Setting aside the question whether it's desirable to expose yourself only to the ideas of people you know agree with you, what on earth have these people been reading that they expect the natural content of authorial belief is close to theirs? Unless you limit yourself to books written very recently by writers from similar cultural backgrounds, it must, surely, be obvious that much of what you read will have been written by people with whom you would be in profound disagreement on one moral question or another? If you consider the diversity of views across the geographic expanse of the world and a temporal span of several thousand years ... well, if I got rid of every book where I had reason to believe I disagreed with the author on some important issue, I'd have shelf space for an awful lot of ornaments.
4. I always want to know how far through I am when I'm reading. It makes me edgy and unhappy if there's no constant visual cue (I hate journal layouts where a whole list of tags and links and previous entries makes every page long, even if the entry is only a few hundred words). It's not a matter of trying to find time to read something, I just like to know where I am in the text. Which brings me to ... in theory, I should want an e-book reader so much: I've always dreamt of an entire library you could take around with you anywhere. In practice, I find I like physical books. Also, I think of myself as having a poor visual memory, but perhaps it's more that it's selective, and only applies to things I'm truly interested in, such as books: I can normally remember what the spine of a book looks like, roughly how far through the book the information I'm looking for was, often whether it was on the right or left hand page, and about how far down. Doing away with the tangible object and replacing it with a search function just isn't as satisfying (although where I'm looking up new information, rather than re-finding something I remember reading before, I have been known to search the snippet preview on Google Books to get relevant page numbers if the books in question has a poor index). I can make excuses about drm and file compatibility, but the truth is, I just like books to be objects as well as information.
"His mind's eye sees them quoted on the bottom third of a right-hand page in a (possibly) olive-bound book he read at least five years ago." Edward Gorey, The Unstrung Harp
5. Much in stories serves some function other than strict realism (eg structural, thematic, stylistic etc). The reader must ask what each part is being used to do, rather than assuming it is meant to be mimetically realistic (and mimetically realistic of every aspect of that thing). To take an example where non-realism is at the service of theme: in the Iliad, injuries tend to be either fatal or readily recovered from; this is obviously not the case in actual war, but it allows for a clearer and starker contrast between the pleasures and comforts of mortal life and glory with concomitant death. In other words, it is an editing and a stylisation of reality in service of expressing a particular truth: there are other worthwhile truths to be expressed, and it would be quite reasonable to write a work dealing with a truth involving crippling but non-fatal injuries. It would indeed by quite reasonable to write such a work in dialogue with the Iliad: what would not be reasonable would be to think that the existence of such truths constitute a useful criticism of Homer. The possibility of living with a serious injury, whether physical or mental, may be an important truth, but it doesn't follow that everyone else has a duty to express that truth at every possible opportunity, or that a work that ignores that truth in the service of the clear expression of another is somehow wrong or wicked.
From:
no subject
I don't care what a novelist believes. How can one enjoy books - or life - while disapproving of every damn thing that other people believe? The past is a positive minefield in that regard. Sheesh.
From:
no subject
I find the whole rejecting authors on their beliefs thing boggling. And yet the people who do it are so earnest, and so sure wanting to like something written by someone with the wrong beliefs is a serious moral dilemma, and I just don't understand it at all. That you think someone wrong on some points hardly implies they have nothing worthwhile to say about anything, or that they can't be talented and create enjoyable work. And as you say, that level of disapproval must tend to make life rather dreary.
From:
no subject
I haven't seen people express the same views about non-fiction, which probably reflects the delusion that non-fiction consists of "facts" or else evil lies spread by people one disagrees with. The idea that there could be a point of view or artistic elements in a work of non-fiction seems to escape a lot of people. Bah humbug.
In periods when I'm reading a lot, I read more fiction. When I get busier or I get fed up with whatever genre I've been reading, I tend to read a few reference works instead of many novels. (I don't read much popular science writing, true crime "novels", autobiography, or other chatty, narrative-y non-fiction.)
From:
no subject
Also, someone else who reads reference works! That's my preferred flavour of non-fiction, but I haven't found it enjoys much popularity among my offline acquaintances.