In today's overly practical world, people often say they don't have the time or interest to read literary fiction. They'd rather read books that are more "hands-on" or "informative", that directly address the issue at hand. The logic is: Want to learn about a historical event? Read a non-fiction that presents the relevant facts and milestones. Want to improve your approach to life or relationships? Grab a self-help bible by this or that guru.
However, life's nuances often disappear between the lines of non-fiction. Issues are usually more complex and multidimensional than they seem. History is a good example. I've always enjoyed reading non-fiction books about the Spanish Civil War and the two World Wars. I learned about the chronology of events, the great battles, leaders, and so forth. Yet, I only started to have a better grasp of the effect of these wars on the people when I read, for instance, the novels of Camilo Jose Cela, Ernest Hemingway, and Elie Weisel. Likewise, I had read several accounts on the Latin American dictatorships of the twentieth century, but could only start to internalize the horror of these regimes when I read Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat.
Literature has enormous transformational power - both internal and external. Ayn Rand used fictional characters to help create a new field of conservative economics. George Orwell to this day makes us think about our relationship with the State and other potential "Big Brothers". Jean-Paul Sartre challenges us to look inside ourselves and find our essence. Gabriel Garcia Marquez redefined the concept of love. Clarice Lispector has become a witness to our agonies. Charles Bukowski brings us inside the pain of a troubled bohemian. Mia Couto offers us new lenses to see the world.
Fiction is an amazingly flexible platform. It develops the reader's capacity to absorb details. It lets us navigate on the most intimate side of things, sharpening our understanding. Diving into particular characters, it makes us humanize the experiences. Instead of just presenting facts or opinions, through narrative, it provides us with the tools to understand a certain era, topic, or reality. What we do with these tools is up to each one of us. In fact, the same person might read a novel more than once and interpret it in different ways. A work of fiction is dynamic, it evolves with the reader.
Personally, when I decided to finally put my ideas in a book, for the reasons above, I decided to write a novella, The Drifting Self. Not surprisingly, every time I discuss it with someone I discover a new angle that I had not thought of when I wrote it. Indeed, literary fiction is a living beast that outgrows its creator.
Don't get me wrong, I love non-fiction and have always at least one on my bedside. Nevertheless, to acquire a deeper and more visceral view of certain topics, whenever possible I try to complement it with novels. I once heard a very interesting quote (source unkown): "If you want to learn about the history of the post office, read about the story of a letter."