Fiction nurtures the soul - a must for even hard-hearted politicians
Chris Bowen
March 11, 2009
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A prominent federal politician recently boasted he hadn't read a fiction book since he left school.
Now, while my personal tastes will lead me to the non-fiction shelf more often than novels, it was a bit disconcerting to hear a prominent public figure speak so derisively of fiction.
This revelation from a parliamentary colleague got me thinking. Where would we be if we all lost the lessons of some of the great works of fiction? Where would we be if young people listened to this politician and stopped reading anything but textbooks? Is it a good thing that a leading politician would boast about cutting himself off from the world of novels? Why should we encourage young people to keep reading novels when there are so many other forms of modern entertainment?
People read for all sorts of reasons. Some novels are just rollicking good stories and others hold deeper lessons. A novel can be an enjoyable read and also expand the mind.
Fiction gives us an understanding of the motivations of people that is unmatched by any other art form. And that, of course is the beauty of fiction: it exposes every situation imaginable. Fiction provides a window into the human heart and human mind.
We all live one life, but readers can live thousands of lives. Novels can open the mind. Researchers have argued that people who read novels and who have to think about the connection between a character's thoughts and their actions are better at social interaction. Children who read novels are developing their imagination, and therefore their ability to "think outside the square" and solve problems.
Lisa Zunshine of the University of Kentucky has described reading a good detective novel as weightlifting for the mind. A work does not need to be non-fiction to be serious, to help us be better people, to give insights that textbooks and non-fiction works would struggle to give us.
As we experience difficult economic times, it pays to read Keynes, Stiglitz and Krugman of course. But it also pays to read Steinbeck. Set in the Great Depression, his The Grapes of Wrath is a soaring testament to the virtues of common people. As he follows the struggles of the Joad family, cast out of their farm through no fault of their own, every page is a reminder of the burdens of those who are thrown on an economic scrap heap through no fault of their own, and the case for helping them through. It is also a homily of hope about human kindness, about the best and worst of the human condition. It's a timeless book, yet a book of particular resonance as we enter tough times again. Continued...
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