Why should we even read literature?

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, FalagarV2 said:

It's interesting, in this regard, that a central exercise in later Greco-Roman education involved writing imaginative pieces (ethopoeiai) about characters from the Iliad, Odyssey or other narratives of the classical tradition's 'expanded universe', explaining their reasoning or mindset at specific events. Or that Augustine censored himself for loving Latin literature, which caused him 'to remember the wanderings of some Aeneas, while forgetting of my own wanderings, and to bewail Dido’s death because she committed suicide, while in the midst of these trifles I, wretched as could be, allowed myself to die away from you with dry eyes.' (Confessions 1.13). The ancients certainly did not think their canon void of emotional attachment or opportunities for escapism.

Fan fiction is timeless.

[Zorral]

Might this be the final answer to the perennial question as to whether there's a difference between 'literary/literature', and if there is such a thing as a difference between 'literary/literature 'and other kinds of fiction, why would we bother reading 'literary/literature' at all?

Now, be warned, this is not the point of the article, it's merely one of my own questions to the piece's, that came up while reading it.

"Is Amazon Changing the Novel?
In the new literary landscape, readers are customers, writers are service providers, and books are expected to offer instant gratification."  [PAYWALL]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/01/is-amazon-changing-the-novel-everything-and-less

Quote

 

.... As book historians like Ted Striphas and Leah Price have written, there is nothing new in the notion of the book as a commodity; books were the first objects to be sold on credit. They were early to be bar-coded, allowing for inventory to be tracked electronically, which made them well suited to online retail. “Everything and Less” takes glancing notice of this history; McGurl’s real interest is in charting how Amazon’s tentacles have inched their way into the relationship between reader and writer. This is clearest in the case of K.D.P. The platform pays the author by the number of pages read, which creates a strong incentive for cliffhangers early on, and for generating as many pages as possible as quickly as possible. The writer is exhorted to produce not just one book or a series but something closer to a feed—what McGurl calls a “series of series.” In order to fully harness K.D.P.’s promotional algorithms, McGurl says, an author must publish a new novel every three months. To assist with this task, a separate shelf of self-published books has sprung up, including Rachel Aaron’s “2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love,” which will help you disgorge a novel in a week or two. Although more overtly concerned with quantity over quality, K.D.P. retains certain idiosyncratic standards. Amazon’s “Guide to Kindle Content Quality” warns the writer against typos, “formatting issues,” “missing content,” and “disappointing content”—not least, “content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience.” Literary disappointment has always violated the supposed “contract” with a reader, no doubt, but in Bezos’s world the terms of the deal have been made literal. The author is dead; long live the service provider.

The reader, in turn, has been reborn as a consumer in the contemporary marketplace, the hallmarks of which are the precision and the reliability with which particular desires are met. “A digital existence is a liquid existence, something like mother’s milk, flowing to the scene of need,” McGurl writes. That’s what Bill Gates promised the Web would do: provide “friction-free capitalism.” Can the ease of procuring a product translate into an aesthetic of its own? The critic Rob Horning has called the avoidance of friction “a kind of content in itself—‘readable books’; ‘listenable music’; ‘vibes’; ‘ambience’ etc.” On Amazon, the promise of easy consumption is even more pointed: with the discernment of algorithms, books aren’t just readable; they’re specifically readable by you.

Hence McGurl’s focus on the explosion of genre fiction—the bulk of fiction produced today. Here we find the estuary where books merge with Amazon’s service ethos, its resolve to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Genre has, of course, always been an organizing principle in book marketing. The shiny embossed titles of the books on the spinning rack at an airport kiosk promise a hit of reliable pleasure to readers craving a Robert Ludlum thriller or a Nora Roberts love story. But Amazon brings such targeting to the next level. Romance readers can classify themselves as fans of “Clean & Wholesome” or “Paranormal” or “Later in Life.” And Amazon, having tracked your purchases, has the receipts—and will serve you suggestions accordingly. These micro-genres deliver on a hyper-specific promise of quality, but also end up reinforcing the company’s promise of quantity. What else does genre guarantee but variations on a trusted formula, endlessly iterated to fill up a Kindle’s bottomless library? ....

... I wondered, too, at his notion of the “success” of K.D.P. writers. One survey of self-published writers found that half make less than five hundred dollars a year. But McGurl does not include the voices of K.D.P. writers themselves (save for the well-rewarded science-fiction writer Hugh Howey, an unofficial spokesman for self-publishing). He speaks of their innovations but not of their material reality. What of today’s Edwin Reardons? Never before have so many people made so little from their writing. Nor do we hear about writers who feel ambivalent about using Amazon as a platform to begin with, or who feel cheated or exploited. ....

 

Other reactions I had to this long pieces, is speculation whether this kind of publishing explains the growth of readers believing they own what an author creates, and they are entitled to have the author write only what it is the reader wants.  If the writer demands ownership and doesn't fulfill customer's demands, sue, or at least get my money back and punish the author in other ways too.

Now in this pandemic world, other producers and labor are fighting back by refusing to even show up.  So, shortages of everything from staff in restaurants and retail for customers to boss around and otherwise abuse, to getting their preferred complexity of coffee in Starbux -- some have had to close locations because, well, yes, lack of staff.

This can happen with producers of the entertainments we believe we're entitled to without stop in an eternal pipeline / supply chain.

Making fiction an adjunct, consumer commodity, is exactly what spotify, etc. have done with music too.

[maarsen]

20 hours ago, Zorral said:

Might this be the final answer to the perennial question as to whether there's a difference between 'literary/literature', and if there is such a thing as a difference between 'literary/literature 'and other kinds of fiction, why would we bother reading 'literary/literature' at all?

Now, be warned, this is not the point of the article, it's merely one of my own questions to the piece's, that came up while reading it.

"Is Amazon Changing the Novel?
In the new literary landscape, readers are customers, writers are service providers, and books are expected to offer instant gratification."  [PAYWALL]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/01/is-amazon-changing-the-novel-everything-and-less

Other reactions I had to this long pieces, is speculation whether this kind of publishing explains the growth of readers believing they own what an author creates, and they are entitled to have the author write only what it is the reader wants.  If the writer demands ownership and doesn't fulfill customer's demands, sue, or at least get my money back and punish the author in other ways too.

Now in this pandemic world, other producers and labor are fighting back by refusing to even show up.  So, shortages of everything from staff in restaurants and retail for customers to boss around and otherwise abuse, to getting their preferred complexity of coffee in Starbux -- some have had to close locations because, well, yes, lack of staff.

This can happen with producers of the entertainments we believe we're entitled to without stop in an eternal pipeline / supply chain.

Making fiction an adjunct, consumer commodity, is exactly what spotify, etc. have done with music too.

Everything old is new again. If I remember correctly, Charles Dickens wrote his novels as serial chapters published weekly in newspapers and as such he did his best to maximize his income by having a large number of chapters for each novel. Alexandre Dumas pere if I recall correctly did the same for his novels, which is why I was surprised to find the originals so much larger than the children's versions I read as a child.

Serializing offers fast gratification for both the writer and the reader but can lead to issues such as burnout, leading to the killing of a main character in a desire to get off of the treadmill, as Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. of course there is always the instructive example of Stephen King's Misery.

Great writers make great literature but no format makes a tedious bore of a writer anything more than a tedious bore who just won't shut up.

[Zorral]

40 minutes ago, maarsen said:

no format makes a tedious bore of a writer anything more than a tedious bore who just won't shut up.

At least we aren't compelled to read the bore, whereas far too often we are compelled to hear -- if not listen to -- a tedious bore who won't shut up!  Earlier this morning I had to call one with a question that director wanted answered.  I was on the fone for over 10 minutes, and then "Sorry -- gotta go to a meeting." He was gone, thank goodness, but I never got the opportunity to ask the question!

[butterweedstrover]

So anyways, where the likes of Tolkien and Asimov popularized the analytical lens by focusing on the science of their respective studies, modern day speculative genre authors have evolved from that same trajectory. 

I previously mentioned how world building and moral claims were part of that package, and many countered with the likes of Harry Potter and Robin Hobb. 

Those books (like ASOIAF) focus on character work. But the characters are approached from that same scientific lens. They are over explained until every motivation, desire, and doubt is so well actualized that there is no ambiguity or depth. That character's emotions are therefore limited to what the author can describe, and as we spoke about before emotions aren't scientific and cannot be explored in such a manner. 

Literature is about artistic merit, and exploring that which the scientific method cannot explain. The fault of the like of Rowling and others is that they want to accustom readers to a certain character until the readers know that person better than themselves. 

Inevitably that leads to escapism and an interest in these fictional people rather than ourselves. Books are meant for us to grow, not for us to shrink into a marginalized world of people we would rather be. It is about facing our reality, not denying it. 

As long as speculative fiction focuses on using the scientific method to explore narration, it will remain academically irrelevant. And I should hazard to say, deservedly so. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

35 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

So anyways, where the likes of Tolkien and Asimov popularized the analytical lens by focusing on the science of their respective studies, modern day speculative genre authors have evolved from that same trajectory. 

I previously mentioned how world building and moral claims were part of that package, and many countered with the likes of Harry Potter and Robin Hobb. 

Those books (like ASOIAF) focus on character work. But the characters are approached from that same scientific lens. They are over explained until every motivation, desire, and doubt is so well actualized that there is no ambiguity or depth. That character's emotions are therefore limited to what the author can describe, and as we spoke about before emotions aren't scientific and cannot be explored in such a manner. 

Literature is about artistic merit, and exploring that which the scientific method cannot explain. The fault of the like of Rowling and others is that they want to accustom readers to a certain character until the readers know that person better than themselves. 

Inevitably that leads to escapism and an interest in these fictional people rather than ourselves. Books are meant for us to grow, not for us to shrink into a marginalized world of people we would rather be. It is about facing our reality, not denying it. 

As long as speculative fiction focuses on using the scientific method to explore narration, it will remain academically irrelevant. And I should hazard to say, deservedly so. 

This claim rests on the idea that what you call 'speculative fiction" focuses on the scientific method.  You've cited a couple series for which that may be true.  there is tons of sci-fi and fantasy that doesn't fit that categorization.  Gene Wolfe, China Mieville, Philp K Dick, Ursula LeGuin.  RSB!.  Daniel Abraham. 

This entire argument seems to rest on a very narrow and limited experience of lit that falls under your "speculative fiction" umbrella.

I'd also challenge the assertion that literature is about exploring what the scientific method cannot explain, as it predates the scientific method.  Like yeah, I also appreciate the "when I heard the learned astronomer speak" poem too (although I believe you also don't consider Whitman to be literature?). 

Really we need a giant spreadsheet where you list any works as either "literature" or "not literature" at this point.  

[Larry of the Lawn]

I also think that genre classifications and the idea that "literature" is something else is entirely a function of marketing and capitalism.  While practical, it does little to tell the prospective reader about the literary merit of what you're reading (consuming).  How about a "nutrition facts" for reading so we can tell how many Literatures and Academics (good) we're consuming per Emotional Character Unit (bad)Would love to hear how say, Hillary Mantel fits into this conversation, or even something clearly more "speculative" but from an "literature" writer.  Say, I dunno, David Mitchell or Micheal Chabon (think Yiddish Policemen's Union)

[butterweedstrover]

28 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

This claim rests on the idea that what you call 'speculative fiction" focuses on the scientific method.  You've cited a couple series for which that may be true.  there is tons of sci-fi and fantasy that doesn't fit that categorization.  Gene Wolfe, China Mieville, Philp K Dick, Ursula LeGuin.  RSB!.  Daniel Abraham. 

This entire argument seems to rest on a very narrow and limited experience of lit that falls under your "speculative fiction" umbrella.

I'd also challenge the assertion that literature is about exploring what the scientific method cannot explain, as it predates the scientific method.  Like yeah, I also appreciate the "when I heard the learned astronomer speak" poem too (although I believe you also don't consider Whitman to be literature?). 

Really we need a giant spreadsheet where you list any works as either "literature" or "not literature" at this point.  

I'm glad you replied. I am trying to resuscitate this discussion and I hope this time around I am more concise. 

I haven't read all those authors but I agree the ones I have read don't count. Usula LeGuin is my one exception because while her writing is very poetic and pretty (she borrows from Dunsany) her actual subject matter is very human and therefore I think pretty shallow. 

Neither her nor Gaimen are what I would call scientific but they their dreamy pros is like delicious icing, beautiful but substantively wanting.  

But here is the thing, while not all authors fall into this category I think the mainstream of science fiction fantasy that has evolved from Tolkien and Asimov do approach emotions and narrative (which is based in emotional appeal) through the scientific method. 

As I said before emotions are irrational so therefore cannot be explained by logic. The value of art (or the humanities) in academia is that it can help us understand what the scientific method cannot. 

But I think there is a really category for the types I speak of. Go to a science fiction fantasy section in any book store and you will see the group of popular authors for which I speak. This includes everyone from TJ Klume to Rowling to even newer authors like Fonda Lee and Evan Winters. 

Thanks for replying and I hope you have great day!  

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

I'm glad you replied. I am trying to resuscitate this discussion and I hope this time around I am more concise. 

I haven't read all those authors but I agree the ones I have read don't count. Usula LeGuin is my one exception because while her writing is very poetic and pretty (she borrows from Dunsany) her actual subject matter is very human and therefore I think pretty shallow. 

Neither her nor Gaimen are what I would call scientific but they their dreamy pros is like delicious icing, beautiful but substantively wanting.  

But here is the thing, while not all authors fall into this category I think the mainstream of science fiction fantasy that has evolved from Tolkien and Asimov do approach emotions and narrative (which is based in emotional appeal) through the scientific method. 

As I said before emotions are irrational so therefore cannot be explained by logic. The value of art (or the humanities) in academia is that it can help us understand what the scientific method cannot. 

But I think there is a really category for the types I speak of. Go to a science fiction fantasy section in any book store and you will see the group of popular authors for which I speak. This includes everyone from TJ Klume to Rowling to even newer authors like Fonda Lee and Evan Winters. 

Thanks for replying and I hope you have great day!  

I hope you have a great day too.  I think there is plenty of sci-fi and fantasy that does the things that you're looking for in "literature".  It may not be the best sellers or whatever but there is a massive variety of sci-fi and fantasy out there-- and this lit forum is a great resource / place to find new stuff.  

[butterweedstrover]

6 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

I also think that genre classifications and the idea that "literature" is something else is entirely a function of marketing and capitalism.  While practical, it does little to tell the prospective reader about the literary merit of what you're reading (consuming).  How about a "nutrition facts" for reading so we can tell how many Literatures and Academics (good) we're consuming per Emotional Character Unit (bad)Would love to hear how say, Hillary Mantel fits into this conversation, or even something clearly more "speculative" but from an "literature" writer.  Say, I dunno, David Mitchell or Micheal Chabon (think Yiddish Policemen's Union)

I think it is relatively new because Asimov and Tolkien are relatively new. 

FYI: I think Whitman is certainly a great poet. But before hand many others like Dickens and Orwell weren't seriously considered as great literary writers because they were by nature political. 

Today capitalism and the 'elite' have created new cross boundaries. The older elite (what we think of as the pretentious aristocracy) has fallen out of favor with the new elite that favors what is most marketable. Though in colleges there is certainly a push by new professors to read stuff like NK Jemisin and other popular writers. 

So that crowd of the old elite is shrinking. People like Bezos aren't particularly snobbish. I am not a member of such societies but I was invited to a country club with a lot of old money people and many enjoyed the popular stuff, which I don't think is wrong. 

My only point is that using the analytical lens in narrative has little academic value. The scientific method used to understand historical figures like Stalin is pointless if the character is fake like Harry Potter. That is why I think the greatest literary figures like Ahab and Fortescue are relatively under described with much more ambiguity as to their inner psychology. 

[butterweedstrover]

2 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

I hope you have a great day too.  I think there is plenty of sci-fi and fantasy that does the things that you're looking for in "literature".  It may not be the best sellers or whatever but there is a massive variety of sci-fi and fantasy out there-- and this lit forum is a great resource / place to find new stuff.  

I was pretty abrasive in our last go around about character centric works like Harry Potter and that was my fault. I was frustrated because I was having difficulty articulating my argument. 

I took time off from the forum because I was feeling pretty frustrated with myself, but I have thought about the issue some more. 

Maybe I'll start a new thread but either way I like debating books and fantasy in specific even if it ruffles a few feathers, but I also want to try and be more polite and respectful of other people. We all learn more about ourselves and I'm trying to handle myself better both online and off. 

Sorry if I was rude before, this place should be for people who want to have fun discussing (and debating) things they care about. I'll try better to add to the positive environment and not detract from it. 

[A wilding]

Passing through, I don't see a connection between popular fiction and the scientific method. The scientific method is about forming hypotheses about observed reality, carrying out experiments to test them, and so developing theories to increase our understanding of it. If your argument is that "high literature" can help us understand human emotions and behaviour better than the scientific method, then surely you should be comparing it to psychology, or perhaps neuroscience?

Also I certainly would not agree that reading popular fiction is bad for people, except possibly if sticking to a very narrow category, or when taken to excess. In my experience it generally broadens peoples minds. They tend to outgrow it.

Amused to hear "Tolkien and Asimov" repeatedly mentioned in the same breath though.

Edit:. Not sure you can meaningfully compare Bezos with old style "pretentious aristocracy" elites either. Bezos is what they would have called a merchant, in the business of making a fortune selling stuff to the masses. Those old elites would have regarded such behaviour as beneath them. However Bezos has his forerunners, selling popular fiction to the masses in bulk goes back a long way.

 

[Zorral]

15 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

Usula LeGuin is my one exception because while her writing is very poetic and pretty (she borrows from Dunsany) her actual subject matter is very human and therefore I think pretty shallow. 

That comment allows the reader of it to believe the writer of that comment has not read Ursula LeGuin at all -- whose works are anything but all alike as well.  And the bolded -- what the hell?

Moreover a comment that slots Dickens into a category the commentator chose to label as 'political' -- shows the commentator doesn't know what literature is either, and certainly doesn't understand Dickens, who was not only a forerunner of the socially realistic fiction that was extremely popular in 19th C, but also character driven fiction, an explorer of the gothic and mystery -- o so much is in his work.  Calling him a political writer though is like calling Trollope a political writer because some of his books deal with politicians.

[butterweedstrover]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

That comment allows the reader of it to believe the writer of that comment has not read Ursula LeGuin at all -- whose works are anything but all alike as well.  And the bolded -- what the hell?

Moreover a comment that slots Dickens into a category the commentator chose to label as 'political' -- shows the commentator doesn't know what literature is either, and certainly doesn't understand Dickens, who was not only a forerunner of the socially realistic fiction that was extremely popular in 19th C, but also character driven fiction, an explorer of the gothic and mystery -- o so much is in his work.  Calling him a political writer though is like calling Trollope a political writer because some of his books deal with politicians.

I've dealt with these sort of comments before so I am not going to devolve the conversation any further with personal slights. 

Dickens wrote plenty of social commentary which I classify as "political" and have made the exception for 'David Copperfield" as an example of one writing that is above the rest. 

Stuff like Oliver Twist, Great expectations, etc. are representative of issues to do with social status, seeking to define them rather than 'explore them'. 

Yeah he help popularize different genres but genre doesn't make a book good or bad. It also doesn't make his writing worthless, popular authors who promote a certain genre always have an affect on literature.  

[butterweedstrover]

8 hours ago, A wilding said:

Passing through, I don't see a connection between popular fiction and the scientific method. The scientific method is about forming hypotheses about observed reality, carrying out experiments to test them, and so developing theories to increase our understanding of it. If your argument is that "high literature" can help us understand human emotions and behaviour better than the scientific method, then surely you should be comparing it to psychology, or perhaps neuroscience?

Also I certainly would not agree that reading popular fiction is bad for people, except possibly if sticking to a very narrow category, or when taken to excess. In my experience it generally broadens peoples minds. They tend to outgrow it.

Amused to hear "Tolkien and Asimov" repeatedly mentioned in the same breath though.

Edit:. Not sure you can meaningfully compare Bezos with old style "pretentious aristocracy" elites either. Bezos is what they would have called a merchant, in the business of making a fortune selling stuff to the masses. Those old elites would have regarded such behaviour as beneath them. However Bezos has his forerunners, selling popular fiction to the masses in bulk goes back a long way.

 

I was responding mentally to a recent video online about the fantasy / science-fiction genre which is why there are so many references to Asimov and Tolkien (I don't usually pair them together).  

Psychology is a science because it uses the scientific method (I don't think I need to include neuroscience since the word itself is in there). Psychology explores how emotions are deployed and in response to what. It involves empirical measurements.

The discussion of what emotions mean is more philosophical because as I expressed before, they are irrational by nature. Using logic to understand emotions is a fools game. And that is where the practical utility of art comes to play. 

Mind you the deeper emotional struggles rise from a society with greater isolation (usually to do with social/economic progress) which is why state figures use artistic means to unify a people who are individualized from one another. 

To Bezos I have but one question: Is he or is he not a member of the elite? And if so what member of the elite would reject him? 

The merchant class was often times not part of the aristocracy. That is not true in a fully formed capitalist society.

[Zorral]

28 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

Stuff like Oliver Twist, Great expectations, etc. are representative of issues to do with social status, seeking to define them rather than 'explore them'. 

Sez who except you?     How often have you read the Dickens canon?  Or that of any of his contemporaries?  Or even War and Peace, for which Tolstoy took as his model, both Dickens and George Eliot. 

You have a massive problem discussing Literature as you don't seem to understand any of the terms you are throwing around.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

20 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

I was pretty abrasive in our last go around about character centric works like Harry Potter and that was my fault. I was frustrated because I was having difficulty articulating my argument. 

I took time off from the forum because I was feeling pretty frustrated with myself, but I have thought about the issue some more. 

Maybe I'll start a new thread but either way I like debating books and fantasy in specific even if it ruffles a few feathers, but I also want to try and be more polite and respectful of other people. We all learn more about ourselves and I'm trying to handle myself better both online and off. 

Sorry if I was rude before, this place should be for people who want to have fun discussing (and debating) things they care about. I'll try better to add to the positive environment and not detract from it. 

Hey, I was likely caustic and rude as well.  All good.  

I just think you're missing out on a lot of what even by your definition would be great literature because it happens to fall under the sci-fi / fantasy/ historical fiction labels.  

[butterweedstrover]

15 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Hey, I was likely caustic and rude as well.  All good.  

I just think you're missing out on a lot of what even by your definition would be great literature because it happens to fall under the sci-fi / fantasy/ historical fiction labels.  

I'm not saying there aren't any good books to find. And I have a lot on my backlog to read anyways so I'm not looking for anything new. 

I like debating the merits of this or that genre. And while there are authors are like China Mieville the core of the genre is still influencing a lot of new fantasy/sci-fi writers to approach their subject with a similar lens to the older scientific stuff. 

I also have such criticisms for Gaimen and Le Guin but their books are rather different so I don't group them with the rest. I had to think about them for a while since I thought their style wasn't the answer but it certainly wasn't 'scientific' either. They don't engage in world building or in depth characterization like Malazan or Harry Potter. But their subject matter are very real and sympathetic, modeled after people readers can relate to and their writing style causes such characters who are elsewise familiar to be present as vague rather than ambiguous. 

But I get all this can comes off as extremely negative rather than a fun discussion. I talk about fantasy / scify because that is what I have read the most. 

I'm trying not to sound critical or negative, I just enjoy figuring out the problems I think are holding writers back and how the genre could be improved. All subjective since it is my opinion. 

As to why I post on this forum, I like engaging with traditional speculative genre fans but I keep my posts to a minimal level so it doesn't seem like I am harassing this page or attacking authors. I also quarantine myself to one or two threads so people who want to ignore me can.  

Also ASOIAF was the first epic fantasy series I ever read. 

[butterweedstrover]

54 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Sez who except you?     How often have you read the Dickens canon?  Or that of any of his contemporaries?  Or even War and Peace, for which Tolstoy took as his model, both Dickens and George Eliot. 

You have a massive problem discussing Literature as you don't seem to understand any of the terms you are throwing around.

 

Ok. We don't have to discuss if you don't want. 

[Mister Smikes]

On 8/3/2021 at 5:38 PM, Centrist Simon Steele said:

 

People read literature for the same reason we listen to stories around campfires:  because it is in our blood.  Why we evolved this way and how it benefits us is probably something that transcends our understanding, though I am open to theories.

We read literature from other times and places, so we can broaden our minds, and avoid being puppets and prisoners of our own present culture, and the winds of current intellectual fashion.

We read literature instead of watching movies, not necessarily because movies are an inherently bad expression of the storytelling instinct, but because they are corporate products, which limits our perspective.