Quote:
Originally Posted by bZkindle
IMO, it's better to read to be edified rather than entertained. No one will be 'well read' by reading the 'Twilight' trilogy or Dan Brown books.
I don't read much contemporary fiction. Too much of it is derivative and watered-down; not much different than television.
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I hate Twilight as well but why is it wrong to read Twilight to be entertained? When people read Dickens, Gaskell, Trollope, etc. in the 19th century, they read them, in part, to be entertained. They were published in magazines and their novels were often published in serial format before being published as the novels we have today. No one back then would be ashamed to say "I read Oliver Twist because it's entertaining." Yet, now this is now seen as a negative.
Much of the contemporary fiction I read is probably serious and isn't threatening Jodi Picoult or Dan Brown on the bestseller list but part of the reason why I read it is because I actually enjoy it. It entertains me. Yes, a novel like
Minaret by Leila Aboulela or
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar are serious but the stories are also very engrossing.
Sometimes, I even read fiction that definitely wouldn't be on the reading list of any literature class just because I want to read something light and entertaining. I didn't read a book like
Anna and the French Kiss because I expected some revelatory story with morals about life and human nature. I read because it was fun to read.
I hope you don't feel I'm attacking you. I'm not and I apologize if I come off that way. I just think if we want people to read more and want them to read out of their comfort zone (reading Steinbeck in addition to Stephanie Meyer), we should also stress that these works can be entertaining in addition to edifying. That people can actually enjoy them. Right now, people get exposure to "classics" in their English classes and they're expected to read them looking for different literary devices they just learned and it often ends up not being an enjoyable experience for many people. So many people see these books as being stuffy novels they were forced to read in school and never look back at them as adults.