July 24, 2008

Already Elsewhere

Taking offense to a recent article which termed fiction as distraction, and non-fiction as enlightenment, my friend K at The Pop Triad has some wonderful things to say:

“Fiction is a distraction, but all books are. Reading steals you from the sensory world around you and immerses you in the interior world of the pages in front of you. The temperature and sounds of the place where you sit to read, your seat itself, are irrelevant. You could be anywhere because you are already elsewhere.”

And she wonders if “it’s time to reconsider our collective mindset about the kinds of books that are distractingly enlightening and the kinds that are simply distracting.”