Novels

A

abeofarrell

Guest
With the proliferation of non-fiction on this list I was just wondering if people are reading novels or not. If so, anything particularly edifying?

I love novels but I recognize in myself the desire to escape reality in them as I started getting in to fantasy novels as a way to escape the reality of being bullied in school, fantasizing about myself and a wizard or warrior. I also see a lot of negative ideas relating to IMAGINATION in G's works. Recently I have come to the understanding for myself that imagination does not do me anything good at all unless I am really in control of it and it is firmly based on reality. I worry that reading too many novels pulls me away from more important reading but at the same time at times I feel info overload and need something light. I have reduced my novel reading to about 10 or 15 percent of my total reading now.

Would anyone else care to share their view on this?
 
Well I used to read a LOT of novels (and short stories). I also used to reread my favorite ones every couple of years. But I feel there's so much non-fiction I need to read that fiction is crowded out.

I read "The Last Days of John Lennon" in the last week in the hospital when visiting my mother. It was the only thing I've read in a while as just "killing time." Pretty good book, though.
 
I read recently Laura Ingall's series of books starting with Little House in the Big Woods and ending with The First Four Years. They left a big impression on me and they are so good, that I think everybody should read them at some point in their lives.

Some novels are very good in showing the practical side of what we find on psychology books on narcissism, psychopathy. Last year I read Ceremony of the Innocent by Taylor Caldwell, one of the best books I've ever read. It is not your average happy ending novel though, it is literally Ceremony of the Innocent. I always try to read a recommended novel any now and then. It helps me to put things into perspective and it also speaks to my heart directly.

Check out this thread on "Positive Dissociation":

Positive Dissociation?
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,14103.0.html

You'll find a discussion there that addresses your questions on this topic :)
 
Would anyone else care to share their view on this?
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I like reading satire/humor to have a break from 'deeper reading'. The current favorite is Terry Pratchett's DiscWorld series. There are other sci-fi/fantasy authors I like to read too, or re read between science and psychology books: Jim Butcher, Ilona Andrews, Kat Richardson, and M L N Hanover being a few.

Its good to relax with a book that isn't geared to deeper Work once in a while. Keeps me from being too much of a grouch.
 
I find that reading a novel once in a while is a breath of fresh air. And it can still be of some use and as Psyche was mentioning, the Positive Dissociation thread will explain more about that. For a long time, I was only reading non-fiction because there were so many books I wanted to read that are recommended on this forum. But it got heavy after a while. I was missing reading 'purely' just for fun. I recently really appreciated the 'Game of Thrones' novels (Song of Ice and Fire) by George RR Martin, for example. Novels probably represent 5 to 10 % of the books I read.
 
Mrs.Tigersoap said:
I find that reading a novel once in a while is a breath of fresh air. And it can still be of some use and as Psyche was mentioning, the Positive Dissociation thread will explain more about that. For a long time, I was only reading non-fiction because there were so many books I wanted to read that are recommended on this forum. But it got heavy after a while. I was missing reading 'purely' just for fun. I recently really appreciated the 'Game of Thrones' novels (Song of Ice and Fire) by George RR Martin, for example. Novels probably represent 5 to 10 % of the books I read.
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Very similar experience for me, and when I finally took a break to read for fun, I also really enjoyed reading "Game of Thrones". Sometimes I think I can only absorb a certain amount of heavy reading at a time, as the material usually requires a lot of concentration and time to really grasp the meaning, so every now and then I'll dip into some lighter reading.
 
phew :cool2: Glad to hear I can enjoy a novel-break occasionally without feeling I am the only one not constantly filling myself with knowledge.
 
abeofarrell said:
phew :cool2: Glad to hear I can enjoy a novel-break occasionally without feeling I am the only one not constantly filling myself with knowledge.
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Well, I may be wrong, but I've always thought that there are things you can learn from novels that you can't easily learn from non-fiction (and vice-versa). To be able to follow a group of characters, their development, their interactions, the words they say and the ones they don't, the choices they make, all tell me something about human nature. I can read about defense mechanisms, personality disorders, neuroses, etc. till the cows come home, but until I see it or read it (whether that be in life, a movie, or a novel), I can't say it really makes sense to me.

That said, I think there are a lot of dangers with fiction in general. It's a form of propaganda, we see what the author wants us to see, and that may be influenced by his or her own biases and lack of knowledge. They may have an agenda, for example, to humanize someone who isn't human, to promote one psychological theory or another, or create characters that seem real but perhaps have no relation to any real person. So it pays to be critical.

I used to only read novels (not counting school textbooks). Then for a while I only read non-fiction. Now I read the occasional novel, but it's become rare.
 
I agree, AI. I've learned quite a lot from reading fiction. Reading really great fiction has much value and can enhance what we learn from non-fiction literature and other sources of learning.
 
I always read novels, good ones, classics authors and I like to discover authors that are excellent but are less known. Now I am reading an extraordinary British author, Paul Scott, in fact I re-read his saga The Raj Quartet because reading Hannah Arendt in her section about Imperialism, this book poop up in my mind and I have to read it again. This book is a critic, very strong, about the British Empire in India. And it is a master piece. And I am sure this author is not very well known for this very reason, because he criticizes the racism and the absolutely contempt of the English to the Indians when they were in India.
 
loreta said:
I always read novels, good ones, classics authors and I like to discover authors that are excellent but are less known. Now I am reading an extraordinary British author, Paul Scott, in fact I re-read his saga The Raj Quartet because reading Hannah Arendt in her section about Imperialism, this book poop up in my mind and I have to read it again. This book is a critic, very strong, about the British Empire in India. And it is a master piece. And I am sure this author is not very well known for this very reason, because he criticizes the racism and the absolutely contempt of the English to the Indians when they were in India.
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That one has been on my list for a while. Might have to bump it up! (Actually, I appropriated it from Anthony Burgess' list of 99 best books since the '30s. I've made may way through a chunk of them over the last decade!)
 
Approaching Infinity said:
loreta said:
I always read novels, good ones, classics authors and I like to discover authors that are excellent but are less known. Now I am reading an extraordinary British author, Paul Scott, in fact I re-read his saga The Raj Quartet because reading Hannah Arendt in her section about Imperialism, this book poop up in my mind and I have to read it again. This book is a critic, very strong, about the British Empire in India. And it is a master piece. And I am sure this author is not very well known for this very reason, because he criticizes the racism and the absolutely contempt of the English to the Indians when they were in India.
Click to expand...

That one has been on my list for a while. Might have to bump it up! (Actually, I appropriated it from Anthony Burgess' list of 99 best books since the '30s. I've made may way through a chunk of them over the last decade!)
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I hope you will read it. It is a novel made like a puzzle or like a Mandala, very modern style with many, many voices.

I am always admiring writers who can write novels so complicated and at the same time giving us the opportunity to enter in it, it is for me like a marvelous gift. I like novels that ask to you to participate, in a sense, to be present, to give you the occasion to THINK. This novel is very serious stuff, it is about war and soldiers, about contempt, racism and love. It is about India and Britain. It is in fact very, very contemporary because nothing or very little has change regarding Empires and contempt for other people that the British considered and still consider "other races". When you read it you travel to India in 1942 and in the present (1967). Marvelous!
 
Recently published a study indicating that novels can help readers to develop empathy, as it follows the story of characters with their feelings, thoughts, experiences, etc..

Other than that, as already mentioned, reading novels is a breath of fresh air between readings, according to readings can give us very interesting things.

It's okay to read a novel from time to time!
 
Psyche said:
I read recently Laura Ingall's series of books starting with Little House in the Big Woods and ending with The First Four Years. They left a big impression on me and they are so good, that I think everybody should read them at some point in their lives.
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These were my favorite books when I was a child :) I read them again and again, and when my life was not as I wanted it to be, I always went back to the stories of Laura and her family. I did not read the last two books of the series as they were not translated into my language at the time. But in 1995 as soon as I got internet, I searched and found online pictures of Laura and her family, and read what happened to all of them, when they died, etc. I remember staying online the whole night just to read everything, it was a very touching moment for me. I also liked the Heidi books by Johanna Spyri at that time.

As far as novels go, I read tons of them in earlier years. I read a lot of Greek authors, then Jules Verne, Bronte sisters, Dickens, Hemingway, Toni Morrison, Tolstoy, Dumas, Tim Robins and Paulo Coelho, to name a few. I haven't read a novel in a while, but recently a friend gave me The Night Circus and told me "You NEED to read this", so I put it on my pile and am looking forward to it :)
 
Alana said:
I haven't read a novel in a while, but recently a friend gave me The Night Circus and told me "You NEED to read this", so put it on my pile and am looking forward to it :)
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I recently read The Night Circus and I really liked it !
I won't spoil the story though but it is in the same kind of setting (Victorian + Love story + Magic) as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell which I really liked as well :)
 
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