People who only read non-fiction are missing the exploration of the human condition.
I once read Harold Bloom’s, Genius, the top 100 hundred authors of all time. To get on the list these authors had to demonstrate or describe the human condition. Some of my favorites on the list: Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain, Elliot to name a few.
Bloom says of Shakespeare, “…the use of literature for life, which is the work of augmenting awareness.” Can this understanding of the human condition come from non-fiction? When I was in college the education department liked to show the movie Stand and Deliver. In short it is about a teacher who teaches Hispanic kids in a ghetto how to do calculus. When the kids passed the national exam, most educators thought they had cheated because Hispanic kids in a ghetto should not be able to do calculus. This, obviously, hits on several states of the human condition. Is it transferable in the way a fiction story can be? I felt at the time, and still feel, that the story is about an extra-ordinary teacher which most of us are not. In a sense the story was going to set people up to fail. Is it possible to do what this teacher had done? In theory, of course, it is but most do not have the ability or circumstances. A fiction story can accomplish this extraordinary scenario by allowing the reader to put the ideas in a realm that allows the reader to apply what they are able to without the failure of not living up to the real-world example of the extraordinary person.
For instance, in biography, even though the subject may be profound they are not profound in everything they do or say in all their life. There is a good deal of people’s lives that are mundane. There is also a good portion of a life that is concerned with other people and their influence that cannot be fully explored in a biography because these influential people are off the subject.
Fiction gets around this issue. The ability to explore characters that influence others. The exploration of why people make the decisions or have the beliefs they hold can be covered well in fiction.
The offering of lives one can relate to. An example is the Horatio Hornblower novels by C.S. Forrester. Hornblower, the hero, is always second guessing himself, criticizing himself, and assuming others are better while at the same time using this to motivate and improve. Who has not had these thoughts? Who has not used the comparisons we make with others to motivate us at times. In a biography, these things are rarely explored. Most people do not have intimate journals of their own thoughts. We do not usually compare ourselves unfavourably with others, in public, so the actual process of our thinking needs fiction to explore. The fact Hornblower is fictional allows us to relate to him in any way we wish to. Like a child filtering out the scary bits or ignoring the words they do not understand until they are older and can deal with them. We can incorporate the thoughts, questions, and self-criticism to our thoughts, questions, and self-criticism. We do not need to be in the British Navy in the Napoleonic era to apply these things. That we are so separated from this allows an easier application to our thoughts on leadership.
George Elliot has an amazing ability, demonstrated perfectly in Middlemarch, of showing both sides of a conversation: what one says, what the other actually hears, what was meant, what the consequences are from the different understanding. This is not possible in non-fiction where at best you can give the public version of a conversation from both sides but never the actual misunderstanding as it occurred. The actual misunderstanding is conjecture.
One can truly relate to fictional characters. The events can be so written as to elicit external reactions from the reader that non-fiction rarely does (we already know what is going to happen in history). In Middlemarch when the heroine goes to the garden to give herself up forever to her husband and sees him … (spoiler removal). I yelled aloud with delight at this scene.
In fiction, ideas can be explored by the people involved where in non-fiction only in the third person. Here is an example from Harry Potter, book 7, chapter 20
““I dunno,” said Ron. “Sometimes I’ve thought, when I’ve been a bit hacked off, he was having a laugh or — or he just wanted to make it more difficult. But I don’t think so, not anymore. He knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn’t he? He — well,” Ron’s ears turned bright red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe, “he must’ve known I’d run out on you.”
“No,” Harry corrected him. “He must’ve known you’d always want to come back.””
In history or biography this would be written by an observer and not by the person themselves. At best a quotation of a story taken from a lifetime or put into an event to explain something about the subject. In Fiction, this is one of hundreds of indications of the attitude of a character. All demonstrated in situations that people can relate to even if not fighting Voldemort. The story is tailored in the imagination to fit the life of the person reading it. It is not hero worship, “The Great Man” biography, or the self serving, “History is written by the winners” story.
Sometimes to get an understanding of ourselves we need to get out of our own life and be absorbed by another’s. We can do this by weekends away, doing things that we normally do not get to do. But with fiction, this is almost always outside our normal lives. We can share these lives with others. We can use them to explain our own ideas or to understand others. We can create common ground.
I know you are thinking this is also possible with non-fiction: History, and Biography. But it is a matter of scale, efficiency, and other things like money, accessibility, and variety. Take George Washington for an example. He lived from 1732 to 1799 but we only actually study the time from 1774 to 1797. Yes, we know about the cherry tree myth, and things when he was younger but in terms of the effect on the country we only study a short period of time. In that time, we usually deal with historical events and not his inner self. Frankly we know almost nothing about his inner self because that was not the style of an eighteen century English gentleman. We know more about John Adams’ inner self because of his correspondence with his wife Abigail but that is unique. Later we know a lot about Teddy Roosevelts inner self too but we never get to hear him speak about the doubts as a child with asthma or any fears he had when alone in the western wilderness.
These things fiction can do. Suck you in to a life you cannot lead and bring it to life for you. It can allow you to explore the possibilities of a life. You can be Oliver Twist, the boy that, through no fault of his own, is thrust into horrible situation and yet remains innocent; you can by Noah Claypole who is slimy and must have someone to boss around and feel superior to others all the time; you can be the Artful Dodger and make the best of the life that has been handed to you, loyal to it even to transportation or the gallows, always a bit cheerful while knowing the precarious life you live. You can do these separately or all at the same time.
Fiction can challenge, encourage, and help to bring people together. It can help start wars (Uncle Toms Cabin), it can change the food laws (the Jungle), it can teach children to love books (Dr. Seuss), it can teach how the other half lives (Dickens), explore cultural norms (Huck Finn), and explore the world when oil dies (A World Made by Hand). The list is endless, past, present, and future to live vicariously through multiple characters, events, and ideas. Dig deep into the human condition from all directions, all aspects, all directions. Take what you can your life and ideas. Connect to a vast network of other ideas. Strengthen society, culture, and self through fiction.
Hark 