On Fiction


 


I have friends, very smart friends, who don't read fiction. We get along fine since they view fiction as, more or less, my job, and therefore reading all those novels comes under the acceptable category of reading spec manuals.
But we have discussed why on earth anybody would read fiction, I've been able to give them good answers. And while I haven't convinced any of them to pick up Middlemarch or Der Zauberberg (since they are also very busy people, I think I've moved them off their previous positions (which resemble elevated horses in certain lights.)

That's why, when, through Pandagon , I get guided to the steamed and veneered Ann Althouse , Who says, among other things, that 'a novel is never anything but a "philosophy put into images," and recommends that kids not be taught to read fiction, but read science and history texts.
I'm tempted to get all snarky and say that this opinion is understandable if, when one thinks 'novel' the first semi-autonomic reaction is "Atlas Shrugged" and the second is 'Battlefield Earth."--but, with my busy friends in mind, Professor Althouse raises, albeit indirectly, a Good Question: Why read fiction? And why write it? And why teach it to our kids? (Three questions...)

Let's start out by asking "what is the opposite of fiction?" Most people would answer 'fact'--and that is the opposition Ms. Althouse uses. Kids should be taught facts, and not things that aren't facts. There's a long and venerable tradition of the worship of facts. (Ignore David Byrne singing in the background).
But the truth of the matter is that fiction is not the opposite of fact: fact is ultimately a subset of fiction--or to put it another way, fact is just a very specific type of fiction.
Let me explain:
The intuitive idea of a fact is that it is something real, that happened, that is a quality or an aspect of something that exists. By learning a fact, we put ourselves closer to the real world, and better able to handle it. Sounds like a fine idea. But here's the question: can language give you a fact?
Consider the statement, "I had a dog when I was ten." Sounds factual. But is it a fact if it was my parents who owned the dog? And when i say 'dog', how much of a picture of the actual situation does it give you? Are you closer to the actual situation? You don't even know who 'I' am.
The statement is true (Je vous assure), but is it accurate? How can something be true but not accurate?
The picture you get in your mind is, in most cases, either you at age ten or a file figure of a ten year old kid with either your dog or a file photo if a dog, playing around someplace in your childhood. That picture does not correspond to reality in any respect. There is a reality back there in the past. I have given you what what everyone agrees is an example of a fact. And what you get out of it is a cobbled together Photoshop file. In short, and in truth--a fiction.
Do you see? Do you, so to speak, see?

(Hey, be thankful. Now you don't have to read any Roland Barthes, ever.)
Fiction is implicit in language, down deep in the bones of it. We do not transmit facts: we tell stories. And this leads to my first objection to Ms. Althouse's proposal: it would be teaching them something dangerous: that what they are reading is true. One of the most important lessons fiction teaches a young mind is that all that is written is not accurate, or even true. And by learning the power of fictive techniques--and even learning them themselves--they will get a better sense of what Story can do for them--and to them.
At the risk of being presumptuous, the basis of Professor A.'s misapprehension is the superficial belief that reading is simple. You learn the letters and what they sound like, you learn the parts of speech, and learn what the words mean, and you've got the codebook. Fine, you've got the skill, now on to the multiplication tables, the Periodic Table of Elements, and the state capitals. Next!
But the problem is that the codebook, while true, is not accurate either. Pronunciation is a vast complex story rather than a simple fact, and that's nothing compared to meanings.
We use fiction all the time, in everything in which we use our mind. The important part is that we have a genre of expression in which those techniques are used consciously. Fiction plays with our basic mental techniques, explores the fine distinctions, pushes the boundaries, traps and tickles and hides and reveals all sorts of things. And miraculously enough, good fiction can present things that are not true--but they are accurate.
You know what I'm talkin' about.

At first glance, Annie's 'philosophy put into images' statement does seem to stem from the unreadable Ayn Rand and the worst of Heinlein. . And at second glance it seems to be a deliberately provocative statement designed to provoke indignant response--which worked halfway, Ann. Congrats. But on due consideration, I think she's a hero in error.
Because fiction is, in fact, philosophy put into images, but it's not Hume or Hegel, Kierkegaard or Nietzsche--but Wittgenstein, with a bit of Derrida and Baudrillard mixed in for flavor. Fiction says, "I am fiction, I will tell you made-up inconsequential tales that will make you shout with joy, and feel despair. I will tell you untrue things that will make you understand your friends, your family and yourself better. I will play you like a flute: and see! Here are my tools, all spread out in plain view! You will know they are tricks, I admit it--and watch as they work on you."

If Professor Althouse would have you teach kids to read by reading history textbooks, should they read about Washington crossing the Delaware? It has the virtue of actually having happened. But is the Revolutionary War more comprehensible for it? That would be saying a lot. I would hold that that the truth of the tale has as counterbalance, its inaccuracy--both in details and the relation to larger reality ("Context!"). One can say that it's better to have kids read a story that did happen than one that didn't--but the problem is that a reader will flesh in Washington crossing the Delaware with a million details taken from their own life (and that painting) the same way they'll flesh in Frodo crossing the Anduin. And the problem will be that with Washington alone they won't realize it. They run the risk of not remembering that the Revolutionary War was a vast thing happening all over the colonies at once, and all interlocking, and that it was the effort of a great group of people, and not the adventure of a hero.
And as for science: the narratives that come out of science are theories, and while they tend to be both more true and more accurate than histories, they are also not facts. While it's more arguable that simple acceptance of science is a good thing, it both devalues the context--and does not encourage further scientific inquiry. (Not, of course, to mention the societal problems involved with teaching the kiddies to read with texts on global warming!)

Words are tools that work like magic. That is to say, they are magical tools. Name a thing, and it becomes a thing different from other things. Name an action, and it becomes an action different from other actions. Science and history, in (partial) service to facts, try to minimize these processes, which is good, and pretend they've succeeded, which is bad. Fiction, on the other hand, glories in the tools and makes them shine in the sun, makes them sing. It's important that we know them, both for their dangers and their possibilities.

Posted: Friday - May 18, 2007 at 04:12 PM        

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