A few days ago I posted about my dislike of non-fiction here. As I thought about it, it occurred to me that I never said why. Well, it is because it isn't good art.
We all use graphic art to get a point across. Pictures have the ability to communicate so much better than words. But when I use graphic art it usually isn't that great. It still communicates, it is useful, and I don't have a problem using it. But I would hate to do away with great graphic art from the past or what is being created now. The great stuff speaks at an even deeper level. It also encourages, inspires, and even teaches us who can't produce great graphic art to at least improve what we do have.
The same is true for great fiction. It encourages, inspires, and helps me produce better non-fiction. Unfortunately I think a lot of non-fiction writers don't really think much about the quality of their writing. We aren't as careful as we should be with language. We take too many liberties in the name of efficiency and I think non-fiction suffers because of it.
I think being around the quality use of language rubs off on us. I am not aware of any studies on it but I would guess that children who are raised in homes where good grammar is the norm in every day language do better in school when it comes to grammar. (I imagine this has to have been studied.) Likewise, being around good writing has to make us better writers.
That's why I think great fiction is important and why we should all be partakers of it.
Literature
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3:36 PM
So yes, great fiction can teach us a love of language, but so can great non-fiction. The problem isn't, IMHO, the axis of fiction vs. non-fiction. It is the axis of quality vs. crap. And the problem is most people don't CARE about the quality of what they read. They are either reading it for escapism or knowledge acquisition and in both cases quality is a second-tier concern (if at all).
4:27 PM
True, but I don't think this is comparing apples to apples. By that I mean that great non-fiction significantly falls short of great fiction. I think the same is true for the average. In other words, the average quality of non-fiction falls well below the average quality of fiction.
I'm also not sure about whether people care or not. Maybe there is something else at work here. Maybe people are just too lazy.
4:51 PM
8:38 AM
But this still doesn't hold for my main complaint. A lot of pastors say they only read non-fiction because they only have time to read what they feel obligated to read. That stuff they feel obligated to read is pretty bad. I say they would be better off cutting what they feel obligated to read in half, read more good fiction (or if you want, good non-fiction that they aren't obligated to read), and tell those who are somehow making them feel obligated to go jump in a lake.
9:44 AM
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