Low tolerance for fiction

[PufflingPantsOn]

I am interested to find out if there is something behind having a low tolerance for fiction. My DM, DB, DF and DH are the same. We devour autobiographies, annuals, almanacs, journalism and poetry, however when it comes to fiction we can't get into it or it's more low respect/fear on missing out on what's actually going on in the world and what's real. I recognise how absurd this is and I'm throwing myself into contemporary fiction (the most tolerable or even least time-wasting). Since starting to read contemporary fiction again I'm loving it. Rambling a bit but interested to know of others experiences

My MIL is like this - I don't know why.

I always have a book on the go and I go through phases of reading fiction and non-fiction. If I've been in one phase for a while, I sometimes find it difficult to feel in the mood to read the other.

I tend to find there is less risk of being disappointed with non-fiction. In fiction, I really hate the feeling of losing interest in a book and I don't read on if the book can't hook me back in within a reasonable length of time. With non-fiction I sometimes find there are 'skippable' chapters but you can always get back into the book when the boring bit it out of the way - you can't do that with fiction as once you've lost the thread of the plot, the whole book is lost.

Autism

DustyMaiden How on earth have you extrapolated that from the OP?

@DustyMaiden

or not (in the case of my family). They prefer scifi and fantasy.

*LApprentiSorcier yes, it has to do with the disappointment and feeling that we can't abandon the book. I'm a quarter of the way through Marian Keyes Grown Ups and would like to finish it. Midnight Library I read in 4 days straight. It might be that I'm not finding my thing.

Personal experience. DS will have nothing to do with fiction. Doesn’t understand how people are interested in something someone made up. Absorbs facts like a sponge.

I don’t really enjoy fiction, DH reads it occasionally and DS(6) loves kids’ encyclopaedias and fact books. I don’t know why really - I’m the same with TV, I prefer documentaries/news to dramas and things.

At the moment I’m reading ‘Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain’ and after that I’ve got the newest Barack Obama book to read.

DustyMaiden yes that's exactly it. We are all prone to looking at fiction as "other people's made up stuff". But we love fiction in theatre, art, TV drama, film and I'd say we are all highly empathic people.

It's just personal taste really. I don't understand how DH CA only own about 25 books, which he will read in rotation. Sometimes another will sneak in. He doesn't understand how I can read 200ish crime novels in a year, and rarely reread.

I have ASD and I like fiction. Not every autistic person is like your son DustyMaiden.
And not everyone with ASD has no empathy, either, so stop with the tedious stereotypes please.

DBro use to read only non-fiction and wasn't interested in 'made-up stuff' when he was younger. As he's got older he has realised non-fiction tends to be of its time whereas fiction contains deeper truths that are longer lasting than the facts in non-fiction.

It doesn't really matter, most people read for enjoyment and that is absolutely fine however you achieve it.

I haven't read fiction since I was a child.
I will only read books from which I can learn something practical.
It's like I feel it's a waste of my time to read something which has no influence on my life.
I know it's weird!
On the plus side, I'm a good cook and gardener and have excellent knowledge of the British isles!!!

@toffee1000
No not everyone is like my DS but it’s a trait I recognise that I believe is due to his autism.

I never did and never would say people with ASD had no empathy .

Of course all people are not the same my DS is extremely polite, you not so much.

dusty I'm sorry my post was clumsy and inconsiderate. I mean by saying that we are highly emPathetic that it's more unusual that we don't love fiction. I am an artist, my dad is an actor..but we have a thirst for facts and biographies and not "other peoples made up stuff". Not making a dig at others.

That was meant as a response for toffee sorry.

It sounds like you DO like fiction, OP.

as I get older I find most fiction pretty dull. So many predictable plot points interlaced with Too.Much.Waffly.Description. Zzzzz. When I do find fiction I like, and dare to recommend it here, I get mocked. Generally I like memoirs best to read.

The 3 books I have on the go right now are..
historical fiction
memoir by Katie Adie
Book of American mystery/crime short stories

I wrote a long and considered response, and as usual, MN wiped it. So I’ll only say, if you enjoy poetry, you could try Monkey’s Mask by Dorothy Porter, which is a crime novel written in poetry. It sounds dire, but is, in fact, wonderful.

@PufflingPantsOn

DustyMaiden yes that's exactly it. We are all prone to looking at fiction as "other people's made up stuff". But we love fiction in theatre, art, TV drama, film and I'd say we are all highly empathic people.

A lack of imagination of a certain specific type, a rather puritanical upbringing where novels are seen as ‘sillily lies’ compared to the ‘truth’ of factual accounts, or — seeing as you say you have no problem with the ‘made up’ in theatre, the visual arts, film etc — is it a matter of having a poor visual imagination unless it’s bolstered by specific visual aids? Or that you need help (either something to look at other than the page) or help suspending your disbelief by the presence of others around you, as in theatre?

(I do also have two autistic, fiction-averse godsons who read huge amounts but think fiction is fundamentally silly despite having a novelist mother.)

The fact that this is a family thing suggests learned behaviour within the family environment to me.

What messages about novels did you absorb from those around you while growing up?

Your thread sparked my attention. I have always been a non fiction reader, loving memoirs in particular, and never been drawn to a story. I thought it was time better spent reading to learn. The same goes with my TV watching. I don't watch much but prefer documentaries rather than 'box sets' in general.

Still, in lockdown, I've set myself the GoodReads challenge with a friend and aimed to do a mix of fiction and non fiction. I've really enjoyed a number of novels that I've read and now feel not so drawn to real life stories. I wonder if it's something to do with the escapism needed at the moment.

That is really interesting Bainne , got learned behaviour thing. I grew up in a non practicing Scottish Presbyterian household so that could very well be it! Novels were read and classics were in the bookcase but it was more local cultural books about song and poetry. My mum couldn't read fiction or listen to music for a long time after break up of parents marriage. I think trauma and stress can made it harder to read fiction. Gosh this is beginning to reveal my own reasons for not allowing myself to enjoy fiction.

The pandemic is definitely driving me towards fiction as a means to escape.

I agree with pp about the investment it takes to read fiction. I've got to the stage where I'm almost scared to start a new book in case it lets me down; especially as I can't tell until about page100.

There are also so many new books being published, billed as the new "insert name of recent bestseller". Hyped up "everyone's reading it". That won't stand the test of time.

Sadly, there are great new books amongst the not so good that are in danger of going under the radar.

[quote DustyMaiden]**@toffee1000
No not everyone is like my DS but it’s a trait I recognise that I believe is due to his autism.

I never did and never would say people with ASD had no empathy .

Of course all people are not the same my DS is extremely polite, you not so much.[/quote]

I don't think @toffee1000 was solely replying to you @DustyMaiden

It's an interesting question. I've noticed that a lot more men in my life only read non-fiction, in fact I only know two or three who read fiction. I've often wondered why that is the case.

I'm the polar opposite - I have absolutely zero interest in non-fiction books. You could not pay me to read one. It's all about the escapism for me.

@PufflingPantsOn

DustyMaiden yes that's exactly it. We are all prone to looking at fiction as "other people's made up stuff". But we love fiction in theatre, art, TV drama, film and I'd say we are all highly empathic people.

I prefer to read non-fiction, but like the people in the quote I love film and tv drama. It is maybe the 3-D quality that makes film and tv drama jump a barrier for me. And I love looking at miniatures and dioramas.

@PufflingPantsOn

That is really interesting Bainne , got learned behaviour thing. I grew up in a non practicing Scottish Presbyterian household so that could very well be it! Novels were read and classics were in the bookcase but it was more local cultural books about song and poetry. My mum couldn't read fiction or listen to music for a long time after break up of parents marriage. I think trauma and stress can made it harder to read fiction. Gosh this is beginning to reveal my own reasons for not allowing myself to enjoy fiction.

The pandemic is definitely driving me towards fiction as a means to escape.

That's very interesting on your sense of not reading fiction as learned behaviour.

Personally, I only ever came across the idea that novels were either bad/silly or actually sinful because they were 'lies' in 19th and early 20thc fiction, especially fiction aimed at girls it comes up a lot in LM Montgomery's Emily and Anne series, where two future writers are young girls being brought up in strictly Presbyterian households. Novels are seen as bad, adults are bemused that people get paid for 'such lies', and at one point, Emily is required to a give a solemn agreement to her aunt that she will not, throughout her years at secondary school in town, write a single word that isn't strictly true in her free time so she isn't allowed to write fiction or poetry for several years.

I definitely don't personally think of fiction as necessarily any more escapist than biography or history, or factual books, though it probably depends on what genres you regularly read but I grew up in a household where the adults were not literate enough to read for pleasure, with no books at all, and an entrenched adult idea that reading was 'lazy'. My mother would be absolutely enraged at the sight of twelve year old me reading some 19thc novel in the summer holidays -- she thought it was 'not normal'.