time for fiction

On reading beyond productivity and growing up in the house of words.

Matilda (1996)

My grandfather has always stood fervently against fiction. He claims that “aside from the windmills, Don Quixote is pure fantasy,” and that the only books worth reading are historical narratives, everything else nothing but a waste of time. With the kind of irony and audacity life sometimes displays, his son turned out to be a bookseller.

“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day”, writes Carlos Ruiz Zafón in The Shadow of the Wind. A similar experience is what I try to describe whenever someone asks me what it is like to have a father whose workplace is an oasis of words, and how that has shaped who I am today. Like Mr. Sempere, I too was raised among books; I was raised by them, and from their pages I was able to draw lessons, ideas, and emotions. And sometimes a cliché becomes a cliché because it is steeped in truth, leaving me no choice but to admit that, indeed, thanks to reading, thanks to stories, I have had the chance to travel to other places, to live other lives, and to feel that there are magical dimensions of existence that can solely be reached through words.

Sadly, my grandfather’s conviction seems to be shared by an ever-growing number people, and thus we find ourselves immersed in the rise of non-fiction, which though in theory should pose no problem, often comes paired with a discourse exalting productivity, the effective use of our time, the accumulation of knowledge, the constant need for self-improvement, and a litany of rhetoric that strongly echoes the motivations of capitalism. Reading thus becomes an extension of the workday, for every minute of leisure must have a practical purpose, and spending it on literature that is not “real” is deemed a waste.

Within this false dichotomy, I reclaim today the “made-up” literature, the books about books and the stories about stories that awaken passions and whose reading becomes a ritual, a sanctuary in which to take refuge. My father, who was my first literature teacher, and all those who came after him, brought me close to writers in whose sentences I still live, whose command of language continues to enchant me, and who have shaped me intellectually and emotionally far more than any personal development manual or historical novel ever could. I’m sorry, Grandpa: I know you don’t like being contradicted.

How Should One Read A Book?, Virginia Woolf

If a work of fiction has ever moved you, transported you, or opened a new world for you, please share it in the comments below. I’d love to know which books have touched your heart.

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