Both authors could be
dismissed as merely genre writers (romance and sci-fi) but this would an overly
simplistic (perhaps a better word would be idiotic) pigeonholing of Asimov and
Austen. Yes, one set’s her story in a world where people play the piano forte
and gad about in horse drawn carriages and the other creates a world with
magical musical instruments like the Visi-Sonor and zip about the galaxy in
fabulous space ships. However, what makes the stories of both stand out is that
they deal primarily with people; their emotions, hopes, mistakes,
misconceptions, failures and triumphs.
As we read these stories, we
not only step into the physical world of the tales, but also into the emotional
world of the people who inhabit those worlds, like those two clever and
determined women Elizabeth Bennet and Bayta Darrell. We find ourselves
trying to guess what they should do next, reflect on their past actions, wonder
about the people they are engaging with and try and work out how they could
overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems confronting them. In short we empathise
with the characters in the stories.
There has been a lot of
research pointing out that all this cognitive processing involved in reading
fiction boosts our ability to understand and engage the world around us,
whether we are managing a household (like me), exploring astrophysics or
mathematics or creating poetry or art. But I recently came across an
online article ‘Science shows something surprising about people who love reading fiction’ showing other, perhaps more important
benefits, of reading fiction.
This article summarises recent research suggesting that readers’ empathy for fictional characters is reflected by their empathy for people around in their daily live. Reading fiction, it would seem, hightens our ability to understand the emotion of people around us. This is of course great news for writers: I can now tell people reading my books is good for you, even though some of my tales can be a little scary. On the negative side, the very benefits that come from reading books, may explain why some regimes and individuals have sought to destroy books.
This article summarises recent research suggesting that readers’ empathy for fictional characters is reflected by their empathy for people around in their daily live. Reading fiction, it would seem, hightens our ability to understand the emotion of people around us. This is of course great news for writers: I can now tell people reading my books is good for you, even though some of my tales can be a little scary. On the negative side, the very benefits that come from reading books, may explain why some regimes and individuals have sought to destroy books.
Now read part two: Books and empathy: Kavalier & Clay and the Holocaust
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