{"id":926,"date":"2005-08-16T18:06:02","date_gmt":"2005-08-17T01:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/archives\/926"},"modified":"2005-08-16T18:06:02","modified_gmt":"2005-08-17T01:06:02","slug":"why-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/archives\/926","title":{"rendered":"Why Read?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The comments on a thread over at Making Light<\/a> have got me thinking about reading. The post was initially about people who don’t get fantasy, but what struck me was a passing comment on how people read:<\/p>\n

For some of us, the irony and the metaphor and the assorted not-story bits are what we enjoy chewing on…Speaking solely for myself, the story element, no matter how cracking, rarely satisfies. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This completely boggles my mind–the idea of reading for anything besides the story. <\/p>\n

When I read, for the most part, it is to become absorbed in the story. I may notice historical details, which I find interesting, but metaphor? That reminds me of the English literature classes that I thought I would like, but instead always found disappointing. I don’t care what different parts of the story stand for. I care what the characters do and what happens to them–usually to the point that I have trouble putting down the book and doing something else.<\/p>\n

I read for the way that the books make me feel.<\/p>\n

When I look over at my bookshelves, I can pick out my favorite fantasy books at a glance: Sean Russell’s The Initiate Brother<\/i>, Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic<\/i>, Steven Brust’s Viscount of Adrilankha<\/i>, David Edding’s Belgariad<\/i>, Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint<\/i>, Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori<\/i>… and what all these books have in common is that I love the stories they tell, I love the way the stories make me feel what the characters feel, I love the characters. <\/p>\n

That people would read fantasy for some other reason is astounding to me–I cannot wrap my mind around the idea. Sure I read non-fiction to learn–I enjoy learning. But fiction is an escape. I may wonder whether the details in a piece of historical fiction are correct or not, but that just makes me want to read more about the subject. (How do I love Google–let me count the ways.)<\/p>\n

Is this reading fiction as a mataphor common? Do a lot of people do this? Why do they do this? Doesn’t it get in the way of enjoying a book?<\/p>\n

Weird.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The comments on a thread over at Making Light have got me thinking about reading. The post was initially about people who don’t get fantasy, but what struck me was a passing comment on how people read: For some of us, the irony and the metaphor and the assorted not-story bits are what we enjoy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pefxA-eW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/notreally\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}