Last December, during one of those periods of Internet-wondering that happens every so often, I came across an article on Lifehacker (one of the Gawker family of content-scrolls) in which columnist Thorin Klosowski illuminated some reasons to read fiction. While making sure to point out that “[r]eading fiction doesn’t always have the tangible benefits that science demands,” it can help us learn things like: “[f]iction teaches you that change is inevitable” and “[r]eading might help you learn empathy.” Emphasis there, I believe, on the might.
A few weeks later, I found myself confronted by another, competing claim. Bill McKibben, in his introduction to the NYRB reprint of Yaşar Kemal’s epic novel They Burn the Thistles, notes that: