Comments on: doubling up

By: verbivore

verbivore — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 09:50:26 +0000

I’m so happy to see you’re back online Heather. Looking forward to more of your posts at The Library Ladder.

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:03:28 +0000

Your friend sounds a bit like he is shutting himself off from his imagination – how sad. I loved this post. Thank you so much for sharing this – I could picture a kid reading beside a river with a fishing pole.

By: verbivore

verbivore — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:10:02 +0000

Melanie – I’ve never read that Yann Martel quote and I love it! What a great observation. I suppose paying attention to life in general does the same thing but fiction is such an agreable medium.

Matt – I agree about my friend. He’s missing out. At the same time he has an appreciation for non-fiction that I don’t. And I suppose I’m missing out on that end although I’d never dismiss the experience entirely.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:27:18 +0000

I agree with the comments above. I think I’ve learned more about life and people from fiction than I have from non-fiction. When I want to learn about a certain topic I turn to non-fiction, but when I want to escape from my life or, alternatively, when I want to feel what it’s like to really live I turn to fiction. I think your friend is missing out on a lot of good stuff!

By: Melanie

Melanie — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:48:35 +0000

Yes! This is exactly why I read fiction. Experiencing other ways of being/seeing and understanding them from a character’s personal viewpoint adds so much to life. I love your observation that “Reading fiction gives me the opportunity to encounter life in stereo”. That’s a perfect way to express this. I also like Yann Martel’s reasoning, that fiction-readers read to become “ontologically thicker”.

By: verbivore

verbivore — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:59:16 +0000

Thank you, SW, and I agree that we pay attention when we’re reading fiction in a way that we sometimes don’t in our everyday life. I like how you’ve put this.

Sharon – how true! I think fiction can really open doors to other views and lives. And I certainly miss the beauty of the eastern Oregon I remember from my childhood. I consider myself very lucky for the times passed in that part of the country.

By: Sharon M.

Sharon M. — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:43:58 +0000

I’ve always felt that fiction saved my (emotional) life growing up in a rather harsh, military family. As a young girl it was exhilarating to discover there were other ways of thinking and being in the world than what I observed around me.

(Camping on the beautiful McKenzie River – now that’s a great memory!)

By: S W

S W — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:14:56 +0000

“but I get so much ‘life’ from fiction” – is indeed a very true statement and I truly support you for I too believe that one gets a lot of knowledge about how people think and react to situations. We can learn a lot about the world surrounding us from fiction and we also tend to observe more.