The truth about reading fiction

BY ANTHONY GATHAMBIRI IMC

In this era of electronic screens, people are more in tune with audio-visual information than they are with the written word. On every corner, movies are being sold like nobody’s business (though not always legally).

Movies stimulate visually and require little effort to watch. Movies are good, but they can’t take the place of fiction. Sadly, reading is becoming a lost art. I read mostly non-fiction books, but with time I have come to appreciate the beauty in reading fiction.

Reading good fiction now and then is not only fun, but also necessary. It does pay dividends.

A while ago, I entered the local video hire shop in Merrivale, KwaZulu-Natal. On one of the shelves was a video of the book that I was presently reading, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I considered picking it, but decided to rather wait and see how the story unfolds between the covers.

Two hours of a movie cannot do justice to a book that might have taken years in organising ideas and putting them in a narrative.

Fiction fuels the imagination and creativity. Which field doesn’t like a creative mind today? Whether you are a cook,  painter, architect, musician, journalist or educationist, you must show some sense of creativity.

A sage once said that if the world did not read fiction, it would be sick with boredom. It is through the imagination that people invent things, shape economies and alleviate others’ suffering.

With movies, no matter how breathtaking they might be, everything is fully baked for the viewer. The imagination is limited. There is no room to ponder the beauty of well-written fiction.

When we read fiction, we create our own story. We own the characters; we think with them, we hear their voices, we smell their perfume, we see what they see in our minds. Good fiction is like a good friend. You enjoy being with friends and nattering with them. When a book ends, it feels like losing a friend.

Recently I finished a novel titled The Shark. I was so absorbed in it, I was disappointed when it ended so soon. That friend left many dangling questions. I even went to the library to see if there was a sequel (there wasn’t).

Fiction helps us build our vocabulary. We pick up good phrases and expressions which can help us drizzle a little spice to our own writing.

In this age of txt spk, reading fiction can improve spelling and articulation.

Some fiction can even be informative. We can learn history, science, art and much more through fiction. Teachers should encourage pupils to read—no doubt the children will benefit tremendously.

Fiction can contribute to personal development. Stories can act as mirrors of ourselves. In fiction we meet characters that speak to us and motivate us to work on our own development. In the mirror of fiction we can discern untapped strengths in us, like a Johari window that shows us the other part of ourselves that we don’t know.

It is in fiction that we encounter characters that we like to identify with. And who doesn’t like to identify with heroes and heroines?

Reading fiction is a leisure activity, but it certainly is not a waste of time.