Fiction Quirk
As I was listening to The Iowa Baseball Confederacy today on tape, I remembered something which I had forgot about fiction books, the power of the ending. To me, it seems like an ending can make or break a book.
As I got to the second side of the last tape of the audio book, I started to become nervous as I didn't see any clear way for the book to end in such a short amount of time. It reminded me of the feeling I sometimes get while watching a really good movie, knowing that it is nearing the time it is supposed to end, and fearing that it will have one of those abrupt, unsatisfying endings. In the end, I found myself asking, "What just happened?" After re-listening to the ending, the question only became stronger in my head, "What the hell just happened?!" I wondered - half disappointed at myself for not knowing and half angry at the book.
Oh yeah, I have another problem from my six hours of reading today. This one has to do with audio books. During the duration of my listening, I accidentally fell asleep or daydreamed five-six times while lying in bed staring at the ceiling. I think I only missed a few minutes each time, but I can't be really sure. Perhaps, this is why the ending baffled me.
Posted at January 17, 2004 08:43 PM
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I've had similar feelings about fiction books in the past, and have generally stayed away from them. Last semester, in my Women in the Urban Environment class, my professor included on our reading list two fiction books. I was slightly annoyed by this, because I felt that much more value would be received by reading informative and/or theoretical books and articles.
However, I soon realized the power of metaphor that the books offered. When reading non-fiction, I often find that some of the best parts of the non-fiction books are the stories and metaphors the author uses to make their point. I am still not a huge fiction reader, but I have begun to enjoy fiction as a new way of thinking about ideas and concepts that in many ways can be much more powerful than non-fiction. Ironically, fiction can sometimes more effectively reflect truths.
