Question of the Week # 3; Fiction vs Non-Fiction!!

[Meg]

You guys need to expand your minds when thinking about fiction. You're looking at it surface level. Fiction has the potential to teach us a lot of history, life, human nature, and a host of other things. (Note: I'm talking about good fiction, here.) Look at To Kill a Mockingbird. Look at The Once and Future King. The Sun Also Rises. Catcher and the Rye. Handmaid's Tale. The Joy Luck Club. These are all books that teach us a lot about different people. They teach us about love, jealously, hatred and bigotry, family and trauma. Non fiction is straight facts, but that's really all it is. Facts. Fiction is emotion. Discovery. Empathy. You can learn a lot about life and humanity from reading good fiction. You can certainly learn a lot from reading nonfiction, but not on such a personal level. You're typically not stepping into another person's shoes, when you read non fiction. (Unless we're talking about a memoir, but those are expected to have an element of fiction to it.)

Non fiction presents things the way they are and how it happened. Fiction can present those same things in a different way, which forces people to think outside their own perspective and bias in order to really see the world in a new light.

But that doesn't mean I don't love a fascinating research article.

Can we actually post some non fiction book recommendations in this thread? Most times, book recommendations are limited to fiction, and I have great non fictions I can recommend.


EDIT: I would also like to point out that non-fiction is just as susceptible to bias and corruption just as fiction can. I'd say in many cases it is more so. But I guess for the sake of this thread, we're assuming "non fiction" is actually, ya know, accurate. None of this high school history "slavery never happened; I don't know what you're talking about. And Christopher Columbus was an upstanding, moral individual. *whistles* @La Femme Fatale that's what I was getting at when I said fiction can contain more truth.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Non fiction recommendation: The Race Beat

Pulitzer-winning recount of reporters working during the United States's civil rights movement.

I'll add in that fiction is valuable in cases such as To Kill A Mockingbird, but still is only as "good" as the author's rhetoric.

I see what you're saying about there being historically revealing fiction novels as well as propagated non fiction sources (*cough* Tom Metzger *cough*). That's definitely true.

 

[Meg]

Non fiction recommendation: The Race Beat

Pulitzer-winning recount of reporters working during the United States's civil rights movement.

I'll add in that fiction is valuable in cases such as To Kill A Mockingbird, but still is only as "good" as the author's rhetoric.

I see what you're saying about there being historically revealing fiction novels as well as propagated non fiction sources (*cough* Tom Metzger *cough*). That's definitely true. Non fiction, however suggestively or

You could argue that anything is only as "good" as the author's rhetoric. Also, it looks like your post got cut off.

 

[La Femme Fatale]

You guys need to expand your minds when thinking about fiction. You're looking at it surface level. Fiction has the potential to teach us a lot of history, life, human nature, and a host of other things. (Note: I'm talking about good fiction, here.) Look at To Kill a Mockingbird. Look at The Once and Future King. The Sun Also Rises. Catcher and the Rye. Handmaid's Tale. The Joy Luck Club. These are all books that teach us a lot about different people. They teach us about love, jealously, hatred and bigotry, family and trauma. Non fiction is straight facts, but that's really all it is. Facts. Fiction is emotion. Discovery. Empathy. You can learn a lot about life and humanity from reading good fiction. You can certainly learn a lot from reading nonfiction, but not on such a personal level. You're typically not stepping into another person's shoes, when you read non fiction. (Unless we're talking about a memoir, but those are expected to have an element of fiction to it.)

If emotion is only portrayed in fictional literature, then as humans we have a huge problem on our hands. I get what you're saying about fiction and I don't disagree with you, but we also can't lump all non-fiction books together and portray them as cold and detached simply because they are more historically accurate.

Non-fiction is not just encyclopaedias and history books - they are books like Anne Frank's Diary, Night by Elie Wiesel, etc. You can't claim those books are straight facts and that they don't contain emotion, discovery, and empathy simply because they are based on a true account of someone's life. Non-fiction often gives us insight into the lives, the trials and tribulations of real people, not fictional characters. I know you did very briefly note memoirs - but I just find memoirs should be more than just a side-note in this conversation - as the very same thing you said about fiction can also be said about memoirs.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with fiction - as you said, it does allow you to experience worlds you would not otherwise experience and these books do contain important takeaway messages (most commonly to value people as human beings, I've found). I've enjoyed a lot of fiction - but I enjoy non-fiction more, simply because I find a great deal more to actually learn in non-fiction and I personally don't value the escapism as much as I value knowledge, I suppose.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

You could argue that anything is only as "good" as the author's rhetoric.

You could.

I just think that with non fiction it can go either way. The best non fiction works strive to have no narrative voice and let facts talk. Some succeed, some dont.

With fiction it's utterly inescapable.

 

[Meg]

You could.

I just think that with non fiction it can go either way. The best non fiction works strive to have no narrative voice and let facts talk. Some succeed, some dont.

With fiction it's utterly inescapable.

Which you make sound like that's a bad thing. So every novel is rhetoric. So?

 

[Meg]

If emotion is only portrayed in fictional literature, then as humans we have a huge problem on our hands. I get what you're saying about fiction and I don't disagree with you, but we also can't lump all non-fiction books together and portray them as cold and detached simply because they are more historically accurate.

Non-fiction is not just encyclopaedias and history books - they are books like Anne Frank's Diary, Night by Elie Wiesel, etc. You can't claim those books are straight facts and that they don't contain emotion, discovery, and empathy simply because they are based on a true account of someone's life. Non-fiction often gives us insight into the lives, the trials and tribulations of real people, not fictional characters. I know you did very briefly note memoirs - but I just find memoirs should be more than just a side-note in this conversation - as the very same thing you said about fiction can also be said about memoirs.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with fiction - as you said, it does allow you to experience worlds you would not otherwise experience and these books do contain important takeaway messages (most commonly to value people as human beings, I've found). I've enjoyed a lot of fiction - but I enjoy non-fiction more, simply because I find a great deal more to actually learn in non-fiction and I personally don't value the escapism as much as I value knowledge, I suppose.

I didn't mean to come off like I was brushing memoirs aside. My little one off about memoirs was my way of basically agreeing with everything you just said about them.

And straight facts isn't the only kind of knowledge in the world. Not to mention, "facts" are often disproven once new information arises. (But that's getting into something else.) Basically, to sum up what I'm saying is that fiction can offer just as much knowledge, learning, insight, whatever as nonfiction. It's just a very different kind or knowledge, and that's why I think both are equally valued. Though I happen to prefer reading fiction.

Also, I'm not going to have much time to post after today, and I don't what anyone to think I'm ignoring them if I disappear from this thread!

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Which you make sound like that's a bad thing. So every novel is rhetoric. So?

In my first post, I said beyond moral lessons fiction is only good for entertainment. To me, that as a concept makes fiction so much less valuable or, well.... entertaining.

In short, "so every novel is rhetoric" is why I personally don't gravitate towards fiction.

The "why" is because it's my opinion.

 

[Meg]

In my first post, I said beyond moral lessons fiction is only good for entertainment. To me, that as a concept makes fiction so much less valuable or, well.... entertaining.

In short, "so every novel is rhetoric" is why I personally don't gravitate towards fiction.

The "why" is because it's my opinion.

Fiction offers a lot more than moral lessons. And to boil it down like that isn't very fair either.

But I do get what you're saying. It really is about personal preference.


Annnnnnd my laptop's battery is about to die.

 

[mjk321]

my non-fiction recommendations: Notes Of A Russian Sniper by Vassili Zaitsev, and Sword of Allah Khalid Bin Al-Waleed by A.I Akram

fiction: Personal Recollections of Joan Of Arc by Mark Twain, and all of the Sherlock Holmes Books
(while I said non-fiction is better for me, these 2 books are about real people, portrayed in a fictional fashion)

 

[La Femme Fatale]

And straight facts isn't the only kind of knowledge in the world. Not to mention, "facts" are often disproven once new information arises. (But that's getting into something else.) Basically, to sum up what I'm saying is that fiction can offer just as much knowledge, learning, insight, whatever as nonfiction.

But non-fiction isn't just facts. It's theories, it's insights, it's often another person's truths and perspectives and thoughts. The last book I read was 'No Easy Answers; the Truth Behind Death At Columbine'. In this particular book, the author, who was friends with the Columbine shooters, offers his thoughts into why Harris and Klebold did what they did. It doesn't mean that he's totally bang-on - we'll never know for certain because Harris and Klebold are dead. But what he has to say has some value and credibility. If I wanted to learn about the Columbine shootings, I'm not going to read a fictional account of a fictional school shooting. Even if it's well researched, realistic and well-written, it simply can't offer me the same insight into the mind of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as Brooks' book can. If it did, then it wouldn't be labeled fiction in the first place.

 

[Springhosen]

I agree with, Femme; non fiction isn't just facts. Take the autobiography "Night" by Eli Wiesel for example. It was in story form, it just so happened to be true.

 

[Hel]

The most interesting piece of non-fiction I've ever read (besides the astronomy books) is the Wikipedia article about the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959. If only I could go back in time and travel with that group! Wikipedia covers many different theories, and I do have my own as well, but I'd love to find out what truly happened.