Monday, February 29, 2016

Why Louise Erdrich Love Science

"[The study] found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence -- skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone's body language or gauge what they might be thinking. 
The researchers say that the reason is that literary fiction often leaves more to the imagination, encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional nuance and complexity."
" 'In popular fiction', said Mr. Kidd, one of the researchers, 'really the author is in control, and the reader has a more passive role.' In literary fiction, like Dostoyevsky, 'there is no single, overarching authorial voice,' he said. 'Each character presents a different version of reality, and they aren’t necessarily reliable. You have to participate as a reader in this dialectic, which is really something you have to do in real life.' ”

(New York Times, 10/3/13)

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