Once more, I
recall Isaac Bashevis Singer’s dictum that fiction is to educate and entertain.
In my twenties and thirties, I read a ton of what is still considered classic literature. As I recall, I was
seeking an education, rather than entertainment, in reading “great” works. I
was going on faith. In retrospect, it’s good that I wasn’t seeking
entertainment for I rarely found it. As for the education I sought in
literature, did I find it? I don’t know. I do know much of the reading was a
slog.
Though I still
reach to further educate myself through reading, to challenge my knowledge
base, I seek it primarily through non-fiction. The authors state their
intentions and hopefully live up to them.
In fiction,
the weight now in reading selection is more upon enjoyment, that book I cannot
put down. If the author’s intention is to explore
a topic within a fictional plot, the message must arrive in a satisfying story.
I’ve been disappointed too many times by a critically heralded novel in which
the joy I seek is muted by a message.
All that said,
I still believe fiction offers something nonfiction cannot deliver as well.
Nonfiction most always produces what it promises, as it should, establishing
parameters and then, hopefully living up to them. Unpinned by declared
parameters from the outset, fiction gives freedom to imagine. When the
imagination is set free to take flight in a good story -- reading nirvana.
Most recently, I unexpectedly
experienced this in Robert Galbraith’s (JK Rowling) 927-page Troubled Blood. I was stunned at the enormity
of her talent, beyond Dickensian, to weave a tapestry of fully developed
characters into an involute plot that led to a long, satisfying reading journey.
In the end, for me, it was the story, always the story. Which way do the scales tip for you?
