Fiction and Nonfiction.
As much as I enjoy reading short (fiction) stories, I seem to have a tendency to look for the weakness in the story. I don’t know if this is the reason I like nonfiction more, but when I read nonfiction I only find myself asking questions that would bring clarity to the story; I’m not questioning the reality of it.
I understand that with fiction, there are some things that have to be assumed in order to tie certain ideas or events in with the story line. I also understand that fiction is often derived from real life stuff. At any rate, it’s a struggle for me, most of the time, to sit down and spend time reading or watching a movie that is made up stuff.
I haven’t always had this affliction; it started about ten years ago and just seems to be more prevalent as I get older. About this time I was on a John Grisham kick and would stay up till the wee hours to finish a book. I knew these stories were based on real cases, which made it even more interesting to me. But then something happened; the questions in my head were now along the line of, “oh, how could that be?” rather than, “I wonder…” and I switched to exclusively reading biographies and history.
The paradox is such that, as I get older, I feel as if I should spend more leisure time on things that aren’t of great importance but just more entertaining, like reading fiction. After all, one of my all time favorite movies is The Wizard of Oz. I watched it recently (for the, oh, 100th time maybe) with two of my grandchildren; not once did I get up or find any flaws with the story line. Maybe there’s hope for me still.
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Oh, I cannot tell you how happy I am that I popped in to read your post. It's not just me!
ReplyDeleteI love the image in my head of curling up in the window seat with a down comforter over me and pillows all around, reading a great novel and completely relaxing with it. I can picture it, I daydream about it, but I can no longer seem to get there. There are so many other things to read that are more interesting and meaningful, and I think you've come to the heart of it for me too: sitting down to read or watch made-up stuff is difficult, more and more. I'm not a tv person, I can watch a movie start-to-finish occasionally, but give me a good non-fiction book of whatever kind and I'm hooked. That is when I sit still, anyway, because I'd honestly rather be working on little projects in and around my home. But many of those I've had to research and read about first, too.
And while you're looking for the story's weakness, a book becomes most annoying to me when I find a typo, especially in text books. Once I find one, I'm always watching for the next one. That's a pesky trait for a reader to endure!