Tamir's case that fiction, not just self-help, distills emotions with sincere empathy, and that libraries and novels are portals and time machines where others have already overcome your 'unique' problems. Mia agrees and always keeps one fiction book among the three she reads at once.
Where it appears 2
merchant of masksTamir's framing: non-fiction lives in the knowledge realm and closes the gap between where you are and where you need to be, while fiction lives in the emotions. In an era of eroding decorum and empathy, fiction may be the antidote. Logan connects falling fiction reading, especially among men, to the breakdown of empathy.
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I've called fiction a tonic for empathy. Non-fiction is teaching you things that you don't know; it lives most of the time in the knowledge realm. With fiction specifically, it lives in the emotions.
Stories are useful, and in particular novels are portals into the multiverse. Imagine that your problems in your life have already appeared to other people before, and they have overcome it, and they can liberate you from the burden that you think is so unique and so your own.
- There's nothing new under the sun
Your love and grief are unique, but they are functions of a human nature written about endlessly, so books, even obscure ones by unknown authors, can hand you tools others already used to…
For me fiction is a tonic for empathy, and it's a tonic for any emotion that we choose to identify with.
- Less fiction, less empathy
The breakdown of decorum and empathy may be partly, though not one-to-one, caused by people reading less fiction. Men read less fiction than women in every age group, and that may help…