People who don't read fiction

Avoiding other works in your chosen artistic field(s)

(I realize my first post there is not saying I've never read fiction at *all,* of course -- I do think it's strange not to never have -- but that for whatever reasons tastes and preferences can change.)

i think what the orig. poster MEANS is not 'ppl who don't read fiction' as that's , yeah , pretty much everyone; rather 'ppl who read, and seem pretty bright otherwise, but don't read fiction'. those ppl are creeps.

xpost yes Mark stupid and scared, that's right. Your emotional literacy shames me yet again.

*I do read comics but I tend to think of that as something I do 'instead of' movies rather than novels.

i am pretty leery of saying that an inability to read ficiton is a symptom of self-absorption or lack of empathy or general dullness. there is often a correspondence tho.

xpost -- I was hoping Tom would say something! (Read that thread I linked, at least my first post!)

Tom - point taken, dumb generalisation. Intentionally missing out on the wonders of fiction seems an odd choice, though.

right. that i can understand. my question is more specifically who flat out do not read it. and i mean, among people who read. if 98% of people don't regularly read, this is about the 2% who do.

ned - for some reason i cant open that link. but yeah, again, it's not about tastes changing, it's about "nope, not me, never touched it and never will."

oddly, the person (coworker/boss) who made me wonder about this does just that. I'd say that's 99% of his reading. his opinion is that he likes to stay in reality. oddly enough, he'll watch fictional movies.

Also, practically speaking, I have a habit of dipping into books, putting them down and ignoring them for months, having several on the go, treating them like collections of 'bits': it is much easier to read majority non-fiction if these are your reading habits.

"i had too much to think last night" = a condition i slightly have to dodge, when i have a lot on work-wise or domestically

OTM

well i, I didn't mean to imply that I find all fiction dull, all the time. Don't give me any shit either, 'cause I'm not reading (at present) multiple books and hence no non fiction as I have embarked on a 2400 page odyssey of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu.

I've found that most people I meet that do read fiction read like, mysteries and horror novels.

More and more the value to me in a book is either information (non-fiction's metier) or pleasant company. That last category embraces fiction, but also includes essays, memoirs, poetry, history, popularized science or any genre where the author can develop a distinctive voice and a narrative method.

(In ways I think the impulse often codified as 'magical realism' -- but it transcends the particular range of Latin American writers who first got labelled with that -- reflects a larger impulse on the part of stuffy literary guardianship that prided 'realism' throughout much of the last century but which realized that they had driven themselves into a depressing cul-de-sac. I could say more but it would be involved. [Although here's something random to chew on = dull realistic fiction: cartoon rockism :: imaginative whatever-the-hell-works: cartoon popism?))

For the non-fiction people, what kind of non-fiction do you read?

I've found that most people I meet that do read fiction read like, mysteries and horror novels.
Isn't this also a guilty pleasure of a lot of serious writers as well? Maybe not so guilty. There is a certain craft within the genre formula to appreciate- a certain formalism!- which also helps sidestep the "life lessons" problem.

think fiction can capture 'reality' even better than non-fiction
Right, and often at some deeper level. When I get stuck dealing with reality at the more mundane level, I can't go to the deeper level, at least not for the somewhat extended length of time reading a novel involves.
(multi-x-post)

Jordan: a lot of history, some sports books, some popular science, the very occasional biography, some sociology and politics, the odd book on folklore and myth, some collections of essays and some multi-discipline stuff that borders on philosophy. I used to read a lot of music books but there doesn't seem to be much of a market for the stuff I enjoy in that field now.

This is INCREDIBLY OTM. Essentially the possibility of choices available now has increased, on a wider level, much more than has been the case in the past, and we as individuals are making our choices within that. This is why I think it's terribly hard to talk about a 'mainstream' culture in general as well, in that said 'mainstream' -- pick an area, a communicative medium, a social setting, whatever -- is just one subculture of many -- it just happens to be the one with the most relative attention, and fractures and reforms a lot, which gives it a certain fascination. But its existence does not and need not presume automatic familiarity to everyone, nor that all be required to be so familiar with it.

As for you, Ian, you are Rik the People's Poet. (I KID.)

Another thing: with fiction, I follow writers. It doesn't really matter what kind of story they're telling at the moment, so long as I like their writing and their style and their ideas. It seems like this would be hard to do with non-fiction, as an interest in the subject is more important than with fiction? This may be wrong, but I'm trying to get my head around the non-fiction readers' mindset.

I think it's a fear of having to sit through tedious discussions with people who think you have to read certain books and / or read them a certain way in order to be socially acceptable.

Aaron

It's just the French translation of "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?" from Merchant of Venice. I was referring to your statement that you are a human with honest heartful emotions.

Sorry, dude. My funny is malfunctioning or something.

Or "book" to mean novel.

OH SHUT THE FUCK UP. Good god, how are you still alive if you're going around sounding like such a douche bag? (hi adam)

That's cute that you've got enough time to read stories and glean them for meaning. You're quite the lil' puzzle solver there, buddy! But you're not a child any more, so you should realize that some people have no time for fiction and that doesn't make them less human. At some point you might actually realize that the time you spend in bed projecting could be better spent talking to people face-to-face. At the very least, you might be tempted to cut down on making so many ridiculous statements.

But then you'd lose the qualities that make me love you!

they are proud to be "non-readers", quite frankly it makes me sick.

WTF? Get over it. If they don't like to read, that's their business.

"reading is fun UNTIL YOU NOTICE A WOLF WITH DROOLING MAW BEHIND YOU"

as long as we're comparing two incomparable things, i'll say it's more like liking music but rarely if ever listening to instrumental stuff. i'm sure if a similar thread was started on ILM you'd get people saying that those who never listen to purely instrumental music are cowards, afraid of not getting it. and they probably are racist pigfuckers, too.

"reading is fun UNTIL YOU NOTICE A WOLF WITH DROOLING MAW BEHIND YOU"

I know! Also the one like four below it: "TALL STORIES: Libraries are fun!" Clearly the non-readers have cunningly positioned themselves INSIDE THE MACHINE and are subverting from the inside.

Or demonstrating the girth of your intellectual schlong on an internet message board, eh?