Reading fiction is a different activity in kind than reading non-fiction, primarily due to the fact that non-fiction seeks to please rather than to teach. Indeed, while exposition tries to convey information and knowledge, imaginative works attempt to communicate experience.
How not to read imaginative literature
- Do not try to resist the effect non-fiction has on you; instead allow the literature to open new worlds and let it make you feel as much as possible.
- Do not look for terms, propositions, and arguments (do not apply Rule 6). Fiction teaches by commenting on experiences that are available to us while trying to please at the same time, We must do our own thinking about experience rather than understanding the thinking of the author.
- Do not criticise fiction by the same standard of truth that applies to communicating knowledge. A story just needs to be plausible, not necessarily falsifiable.
Constructive rules
Structural rules
- Classify the book according to its kind: is it a lyric, novel, or play?
- Grasp the unity of the whole. Are you able to summarise the plot in a few sentences? If a lyric, this may mean a few sentences about the experience itself, for example.
- How is that whole connected from its parts? Understand the temporal form of the plot, its arcs and scenes.
Interpretative rules
- The elements of fiction are episodes, incidents, cgaracters, and their thoughts. Stories are told by manupulating these elements.
- Whereas terms are conected in propositions, the elements of fiction are connected by scence or background. They exist in the world the author creates.
- Understand the movement of the narrative.
Critical rules
Do not criticise fiction until you appreciate fully what the author is trying to make you experience. Note that we may not criticise the setting or building of the world - just what is done with it.
Ultimately, the three steps above are but an outline of the way in which one becomes progressively aware of the artistic achievement of an imaginative writer. Far from spoiling enjoyment, we should be able to enrich the experience by knowing not only what we like but why.