Stranger than fiction

[khaosworks]

It has just occurred to me that in the last couple of years since I've gotten interested in the subject of History, that my reading of fictional literature has slackened considerably - aside from comic books, that is. I find myself browsing through the fiction shelves at Borders, picking up a book, reading a couple of pages, and then almost immediately getting bored as if I am unable to find any emotional connection to it. Nothing new in the world of fiction seems to move me anymore - I've even stopped reading the latest Sharpe novels, and the only other bits of fiction in recent memory I've enjoyed are Star Trek novels, which is basically the literary equivalent of popcorn. Hell, even in the popcorn section I couldn't get through the latest Op Center novel.

Instead, everything that moves me is non-fictional, or has a non-fictional connection. The last novel of the non popcorn variety I enjoyed was Jeff Shaara's "Rise to Rebellion", part one of his two-parter series on the American Revolution, and that is also firmly based on fact and history. Since I've discovered History as drama, History as Story, I find the real stuff a lot more fascinating than the made-up. I'm not saying I no longer enjoy the literature I read in my youth. Shakespeare still stirs me, as does memories of everyone I've read, from Bradbury to Calvino to Vonnegut. I read the new Bradbury book about the Family, but it held my attention mostly because it was familiar ground. Nothing new seems to grab my attention anymore, and I'm not exactly sure how to react to that.

I read, for example, how the first shots of the Civil War were fired on Fort Sumter by PTG Beauregard, who was such a promising cadet at West Point he was kept behind by his instructor to teach the next class - his instructor Robert Anderson, who was commanding Sumter at the time those first shots were fired. Or how John Brown's aborted revolution at Harper's Ferry to free the slaves was broken up by then Colonel Robert E. Lee, and in attendance at the former's hanging were Thomas J. Jackson (the future "Stonewall" Jackson) and John Wilkes Booth. Or John Wilmer McLean, whose house at Manassas was commandeered by Beauregard during the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War, got fed up and moved his family to his parents' house at Appomatox - out of harm's way, he thought - and in that living room some 3 years later Ulysses Grant accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender (so he could properly say that the War began in his front yard and ended in his front parlor).

One strange thing about History is how its currents seem to sweep those that affect it the most together in the oddest and most coincidental of ways, before and after those momentous events. I mean, you can't make stuff like this up. If you did no one would believe you.

I'm wondering, am I alone in this? I don't suppose anybody else has found their liking of literature waning after starting to delve into the realm of the non-fictional?

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean; this definetely happened to me in my teens when I discovered history.

I still like fiction, I still read new fiction, but truth really *is* stranger and often more interesting than fiction.

A.

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

The novel "A Beautiful Mind" is an interesting look at how currents seem to sweep those that affect it the most together in the oddest and most coincidental of ways affected the math world between '50-'70. Technically, it's the biography of John Nash; but realistically, it's an exhaustively bibliographed history of 1950's mathematicians. I think you might enjoy it. -H..

[camwyn]

I don't think my situation is quite the same. I would ordinarily say the massive Sinophilia kick that grabbed my brain last year and refuses to let go, ever, had done this - I can't remember the last time I bought an SF/F novel other than things by Pratchett - but I've been looking over my reading list of the last few months. I don't know that it's so much the historical aspect that I'm after as the cultural, the anthropological - not so much what happened as what was it like. The almost 'straight' historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms wasn't nearly as compelling for me as Outlaws of the Marsh - although Outlaws had the distinction of causing me to take a good long look at the tv series "Bonanza" and laugh long and hard at how pathetic the characters were by comparison*. And I don't think anyone could call Journey to the West historical - but as something that offered a leg up on understanding a culture, as an anthropological work, it was bloody outstanding and the first book that ever convinced me to spend $80 for something other than nowhere-else-in-the-world pictures**. I've recently launched into Louis Cha's The Deer and the Cauldron; it's just the sort of fiction I'm looking for right now. I'll happily pounce on anyone's literature, so long as it's good enough to get me inside the heads of the people it's written for. Which is, I think, how Pratchett survived the radical shift of interest; there's always something going on there that's worth understanding.

*BEN CARTWRIGHT: I have pneumonia or something. EVIL GANG: Come out and fight! BEN: Um. CARTWRIGHT BOYS: We need help, townsfolk. TOWNSFOLK: Eek. We all have better things to do. BEN: *hack cough wheeze* BOYS: I'm drafting someone to help fight. For comparison, the guys in Outlaws given the same situation: SONG JIANG: I have pneumonia or something. EVIL GOV'T TROOPS: Come out and fight! LU DA: I'll do it! LIN CHONG: I'll do it! OTHER PEOPLE: We'll help! LI KUI: I'll do it! I'll do it naked! I'll do it naked and with one hand tied behind my back! I'll attack them solo and armed with nothing but my teeth! SONG JIANG: Somebody hold him down before he does something stupid?

**Textbooks don't count. They're not bought by choice.

finding fiction interest waning?

[(Anonymous)]

I did for a while, especially when I got into Krakauer-like personal essay adventures. I still enjoy those. Also when I mainly read magazine articles because I was researching potential markets for my own. But I'm back into fiction again, partly because I find that reading fiction always helps inspire my own fiction-writing.

last posting

[(Anonymous)]

This is Debbie, by the way, sorry.

[dawn-again.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm in the same boat.

I'm an unrepentant fantasy novel junkie, have been ever since I can remember. But lately, instead of poring over the shelves in the fantasy/sci-fi section trying to choose a new author to obsess over, I give the new arrivals section a quick glance to check if any "old favorites" have published anything new and go wandering off.

History is interesting, but for me? Biography, sociology, psychiatric case-studies. I love the explorations of how people tick. How and why people react the way they do. Simply facinating...

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I've left off American Gods right in the middle to resume a philosophy text. And I may drop that to read more of The Treasury of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, one of the prizes of my library.

History interests me in two contexts: wanting to learn a particular society (ancient Rome, the Manhattan Project, etc.) or wanting a context for other books I'm reading (what was going on in Germany and the rest of the world that gave Schopenhauer his way of thinking?). Perhaps as I get older I'll like history more for itself, but I've always been aloof toward it.

As for fiction, anything short of Umberto Eco would be relatively light. I am saving some of the Sherlock Holmes stories for later--I read half of them and stopped when I realized I'd only get one chance to read them for the first time.