I Hate Fiction. True or False?

I’ve decided to try to read more. More is pretty easy since that means going from 0 books a year to, well, more than that. But, being the ridiculous person I am, I decided I should read 36 books by the time I turn 37. That gives me a year and one month to make that happen.

I don’t like fiction. You might be surprised by that fact since when I write anything I tend to write descriptively, as if inspired by the floweriest of fiction writers. But, I guess, deep down, I’m not interested in made up stories or people. What I am interested in is how fiction can be used as a tool to explain what makes people tick. Most fiction, at least literary fiction, seems to do this somewhat — but most of it also doesn’t get philosophical enough for me. That’s why I liked Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (as much as I can like made up stories about made up people) and also why I have failed to get into most fiction books that I’ve picked up.

Other than philosophical-style fiction, I do like historical fiction or fiction set in different cultures where the stories expose me to what it’s like to live somewhere else in the past or present. Despite having no recollection of the story, I read The Kite Runner a few years ago and made it through, and remember that I enjoyed it. So there’s some fiction that I like.

My quest to read 36 books has started with Ulysses and my husband laughed and said my quest to read 36 books will certainly end with Ulysses and it won’t be because I completed it. Well. I did get bored a few micro pages in and heed his advice to save that for later and move on to another book. I looked at my list of 36 books (a mix of books I thought I should read over the years, plus a few that I found on random recommendation lists based on topics I’m interested in.) I jumped to Cosmos: a novel. Kundera likes the author and so, I thought, might I.

The good news is I’m already well into chapter 2 and I feel like I’m going to successfully get to the end of this one. I plan to write something (here) about each book I read so I can relive reading them without having to reread them. I haven’t much to say about this book yet except I enjoy the writing style (almost freeform thought, lots of commas, and repetition) and I wish I could read Polish because I imagine the language itself is so important and even the best translation can’t do that justice… so, as I told my husband, it’s so complicated for me to read one damn book, because now I have to go learn Polish to do so.

At the moment, I’d rather learn Polish than read Ulysses.

What I don’t like about most literary fiction is that it’s about men and written by men. I have nothing against men per se, but maybe I’m just more interested in a woman’s perspective. I have a number of female authors on my list, but also want to get through many of the classics and those are mostly written by men–especially any with a philosophical bent. Margaret Atwood is definitely on the list–I must get through Handmaid’s Tale in this year of reading and perhaps move on to some of her other books.

I think if I ever do write a book it will be because what I want to read doesn’t exist. I don’t know what that is yet, but this endeavor is designed to help me figure it out. This Cosmos book’s main character is a man, thinking as a man, distracted by the things a man gets distracted by, and I wonder if a book exists with the same style of transparent thought except from a woman’s point of view. It probably does exist, I just have to find it. And, if not, I just have to write it.

Oh, but writing fiction is terrifying. Even if you’ve made the stories up entirely they’re based on your own thought and that exposes possibly too much of what belongs tied up inside one’s mind. Anything interesting I have to say I don’t want to say outside of the confines of secret Google docs accounts where all my thoughts lay bare in secret (or, for only the robots of the internet to crawl, and no one else to see.)

Fiction should be fictitious. How can I write what other people think or feel? This would require actually knowing other people. Or, observing and listening and remembering what I’ve seen and expanding on that. Making life into plot lines when life isn’t plotted out neatly like in a book. I don’t like structure as it feels too forced for the sake of storytelling. No real story is that clean. Perhaps there is rising action and a climax but the action does not fall and life does not have resolutions wrapped up in nice little bows.

This may be why I dislike fiction–not the made up characters. I dislike feeling like a story is being made to fit into the confines of what a story is supposed to be. Life is fucking messy and I want my books to be that way. There can be more than one climax. There may be no end or resolution. People want their stories to resolve because it feels good. I want stories to not resolve because I think reality is about existing in a state of unease.

But who am I to judge any of this? I’m just an every(wo)man who dislikes art because artists are people who think too highly of themselves and the importance of what they have to say, when all the things any of us have to say have been said or thought a billion times over before. There is no originality. All the notes have already been played.

So why the hell am I forcing myself to read fiction? Because I WANT to prove myself wrong. I used to read as a child and then reading became one of those academic things I had to do for school and that turned me off to it. I never read the books that were assigned with the exception of the last page or two and then I’d make up the entire story on my book reports where I’d get a C grade for creativity. My teachers didn’t know what to make of me.

…I do watch a lot of television–but television can be messier in plot since often there is no guarantee of season renewal. Books have their beginning, middle, and end, and that requires the author to think through what that means and how to give the reader a reward for finishing.

My hope is I’ll turn into a reader who longs for that reward, who can’t go to bed without getting through dozens of pages in a book. I want to be able to tune out all of the stories in my own head and get lost in a story about someone else who isn’t even real–to feel as if I’m there, with that person, in that world. To be able to appreciate the fantastical, not just science fiction which I tend to enjoy the most of any kind of fiction if it’s presented as what could actually be and thus a sort of non-fiction of the future.

But–maybe I’ll be a better person if I can read fiction and enjoy it. Maybe I’ll learn something significant or at the least learn how to properly use words that someone who gets paid to write should know. I’m curious if I have it in me to complete this exercise and how I’ll feel after getting through 36 books. Will I crave more? Will I never want to read a book again? Will I be inspired to go and write the next great work of fiction (or, at least, complete a novel and submit it to a publisher who will kindly ignore me and not share how they really feel)?

I’m too interested in real people, and not those who are famous or infamous, but those who are still uncovering themselves. Perhaps I tire of fiction so easily because I already live in a world where fictitious stories spin constantly in my mind, with no resolution but plenty of rising action.