Reddit mentions of Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Theory and Interpretation of Narrative)

> First in good fiction there are no coincidences...


I 95% agree with this, and I think it's a very, very good point.

But, there's one realm this is actually good, and it's important. What connects the dots in a lot of fiction is intentionality. There's a book by a theorist named Lisa Zunshine focused on this: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Read-Fiction-Interpretation-Narrative/dp/081425151X

The idea is, fiction is satisfying "empathy play" because there aren't coincidences. You have insight to perspectives you wouldn't normally have, and you get to see the results of people's intentions in a way that you can't get in the real world. This is important because it encourages and facilitates empathy. It increases and feed people's curiosity about other people's minds. Yes, you can go too far and start seeing patterns where there aren't any, but most people aren't in danger of that. Most people need to perspective-take MORE.

Consider the fundamental attribution error... the tendency to assume other people do things just because "that's how they are." Most of the time, that's the reason for an action in a story, you've just written a shitty story. It's more complicated, and the motivations come from somewhere and are leading somewhere. Teaching people that it can be intellectually rewarding to consider that can intervene in people just assuming others are simple and one-dimensional.

not relevant, but all the "funniest/saddest __ stories/jokes" do have relevancy in intellectuality. They are stories imperative to our ability to empathize with others, even if it's characters imagined.

Edit: see
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Read-Fiction-Interpretation-Narrative/dp/081425151X
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=all

First of all, books=/=literature. Are all the books in your room fiction? I'm a bit confused. I'll assume you are referring to fiction only.

While I don't believe there is anything wrong with escapism or relaxation (stress will kill you), actually it's unlikely that's all we get out of reading literature.

One view is that we read because evolution has taught us that it helps us to be better social creatures and that benefits our survival.

A related view is that fiction help us practice understanding others

Or maybe reading helps us think about puzzles.

Then again, those are all links to "books," so if you insist on feeling sick over it, I can't stop you :)

My opinion, which is not supported by facts or any real statistical findings, is that it is considered a sign of an experienced reader to visualize fully and deliberately, so many serious readers aspire to do it. On the other hand, light readers, who often take no particularly pronounced pride in their hobby (and are unlikely to participate in these kind of polls or at all post on /r/books, by the way), seem to tend to dislike descriptions and learn to skip or skim them. Specifically, some readers of romance novels told me they do, and numerous teenage readers said they hate description and often skip it.

One comparatively less anecdotal source of the sentiment that I can remember at the moment is narratologist Liza Zunshine's Why We Read Fiction, where she claims that one of the most pleasing things for readers in general is perceiving the workings of a simulated human mind (understanding what characters are thinking), for which reason pure description is much less engaging to light, young or inexperienced readers, because they are less likely to link a description of bad weather, for example, to a character's current state of mind. Zunshine actually recounts experience with students very similar to mine: light or amateur readers tend to dislike and skip descriptions, which she herself admits to have been doing when she was younger.

So, my opinion is a combination of personal experience and some admittedly mild theoretical insight into the nature of literature as a form of art (as mentioned in passing in my initial post). It's not supported by any meaningful statistics. Nonetheless, I'm convinced that description is ineffectual, taxing, unpopular with light readers and likely—in my opinion—forced on dedicated readers.