A lot of people read as a hobby and that is completely easy to understand.
But at least in my country we need to read fiction books in school and analyse them.
It’s important to know that I am talking about fiction, not about history or math books. I am talking about Shakespeare and those fiction writers.
As an example, we need to explain the meaning of verses in poems and we need to understand what is the meaning behind books.
Why we need to do this? Is the necessary nowadays?
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Im going to explain it to you the way a teacher once told it to me, not regarding books but rather those complicated maths “you will never use in real life”, regardless, the concept is the same:
Sure, you are likely to never use what im teaching you, in fact if you go and get a job in this you will likely only use the most basic form of this, never something as complicated as what youll see in a test… But thats not the point, your brain is a muscle and it needs to train, if one day you are able to solve all these math problems without issue, when you go out to the
“real world” nothing you find will be hard compared to what you are doing here, im not teaching you to solve this specific math problem but rather teaching you to SOLVE PROBLEMS, because there is no easy recipe solution for everything, you need to think and every problem you solve will make the next one easier
Same thing applies to books, its not about the specific book you are reading, its about being able to analyze ANY text, being able to look beyond the words in front of you
While in school in USA in the 1980’s we had to do The Jungle, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, and The Hobbit. Curious what books other people had to dig into?
No one else touched on this but reading Fiction is also effective for building empathy. I don’t know if the exact way it works has been studied but reading fiction can improve your empathy. I would guess it is related to taking the 1st or 3rd person perspective and putting yourself in someone else shoes for an extended period of time but don’t have evidence. I found for me this was especially effective for historical fiction to relate to problems from other cultures or the feelings people might have had. A lot of history can seem really dumb in hindsight (why didn’t they just do this?) until you really try and take on their perspective and imagine what life would have been like (through fiction).
TLDR Fictions improves empathy
Stories teach lessons. And I’m talking literally any story that’s ever been told. An episode of SpongeBob carries some type of meaning, no matter how small.
So the goal of analyzing fiction is to find that meaning. It helps develop your critical thinking skills, which then strengthens your communication skills. You start to understand the emotional/mental intricacies of how to communicate with people… or tell stories. These skills translate into real life whether you realize it or not.
To prove you understand what you’re reading, which itself proves that you’ve got a myriad of literacy skills. Fiction has more subtle layers of meaning than math textbooks, so analysis of fiction demonstrates fluency.
Just because something is fiction, doesn’t mean it’s without merit. Writing is an absolute art form that can come with a lot of power.
Part of the reason is because stories make information personal and relatable.
People don’t generally respond well if you just rattle off a series of facts or statistics, but if you weave that information into something relatable then it has as better chance of sticking.
In addition to the other things already said, it’s also about cultural knowledge. You will typically read books written by renowned classic authors of your language as well as authors from your country, as well as works that the teachers/curriculum thinks address issues in modern society or that expose you to viewpoints you might not otherwise experience.
All of this builds an understanding of the specific culture and broader world you live in, including history, empathy, literary references, and understanding on both a local and global level.
Lot of good stuff being said here, I’d like to add on the pragmatic side that both written and spoken word make you feel something. Anything that can make people feel something is incredibly powerful and important to understand
Literature, and fiction in particularl, is art reflecting life. It’s not just about telling an interesting story, it’s a way to explore certain real-life issues and questions. It’s questioning the status quo (the ‘it is what it is’ mentality) and the way things are. Books are a powerful mechanism to challenge authority and make people think critically about the world around them. They’re a blank slate where you can do *anything*, take an issue and explore it to it’s potential end game. Not all fiction is that, granted. Twilight doesn’t quite have the same quality as War and Peace.
In school, they walk you through how to pick up on those themes, how to think about them critically, how to connect those themes to what was happening at the time those books were written and figure out what the author was making a commentary on or challenging.
Unless you know what to look for, a fiction book can be passed off as ‘just a story’ when in fact it’s a scathing criticism of an oppressive regime. It’s a way to spread those ideas to many people under guise of a work of fiction. It’s one thing to publish an essay explicitly saying “this government sucks” and another to write a fictional novel that has some similarity but taken to an obvious extreme and explore how the society got there and how it affects the population. There is an argument that can be made that this is clearly a book of fiction and any similarity to real-world scenarios are purely coincidental or imagined.
There is a reason book banning is the first step of any oppressive government, and why many authors considered to be classical greats were persecuted by the governments of their time.
Much of these comments focus on the value of the literature in terms of the skills you gain by reading and discussing it.
But, also, many works of fiction have value in and of themselves as historically important, cultural touchstones. Someone mentioned “The Jungle” which was hugely important in the development of food safety and labor laws. Or “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” which convinced many to become abolitionists. Ate either “good” books? Your opinion may vary, but both are valid as historical totems beyond their value as literature.
OP mentioned Jose Saramago. He’s an important cultural figure in his country; reading his books is how one learns of his existence.
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