So, I settled in on my couch yesterday afternoon to spend some time with Hervé Le Tellier’s Enough About Love, which was just published by Other Press, and I was all ready for a quiet afternoon with a nice French novel. I snuggled into the ugly made-by-grandma afghan (it’s a truth of life that ugly afghans are comfier than stylish ones), peeled back the cover, and fell promptly in love with Le Tellier’s beguiling story about two couples whose relationships become unexpectedly complicated.
We were moving right along, Le Tellier and I, and it looked like I was, at long last, going to realize my goal of spending a few uninterrupted hours with a book that isn’t War and Peace. And then I came to this.
An attentive man will always learn more, and more quickly, from good authors than from life.
*squealing brakes*I was looking for a quiet afternoon of relaxed reading, and now I have to grapple with this thought-provoking nugget that Le Tellier just nonchalantly drops into his character’s thoughts like it’s a widely accepted fact?IS it a widely accepted fact?I certainly read to learn and to better see my own life by seeing others, and I might be willing to concede the “more quickly” part of this…I know I’ve learned things from books that would have otherwise required prolonged (and painful!) experiences, but I’m hung up on that “always.”I love books. I love experiencing the world through them and having them change and deepen the way I think about life, relationships, the world. You know the drill, and I’m sure you don’t want to read another love letter to literature (or a rehashing of the flash in the pan that was #whyiread), but there it is. And in all fairness to Le Tellier, this is but a sentence in a 225-page book that is not intended to be meta-literature, and the book really is quite delightful. BUT—you knew there was going to be one—I can’t just let a declaration like this one pass by undiscussed. So I ask you, dear readers, Do good authors teach us more, and more quickly, than life?What do you think?Related posts:
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dogearedcopy onFebruary 16th, 2011 5:20 am As much as I love reading and understand that much can be learned from fiction and non-fiction, the key is that books teach us how to learn from life, not instead of life.
dogearedcopy´s last blog ..Where Are You Reading Challenge- January Status
Valerie Nieman onFebruary 16th, 2011 5:34 am As a lonely child in farm country, I know I sure learned more from books than life early on … all those big words, and not a clue as to how to pronounce them.!
Sandy onFebruary 16th, 2011 7:20 am It is always quicker and more effective to learn by doing, not reading! I don’t get that statement at all! I keep thinking of when I was in college, taking my Auditing class, and reading my Auditing book. No, it wasn’t War and Peace (well, maybe similar) but I should have just lit the damn thing on fire, because when I actually worked at an auditing firm, what we actually DID bore little resemblance to what was in that book.
Sandy´s last blog ..Monday Movie Meme – Show Me the Money
Sarah Collins Honenberger onFebruary 16th, 2011 7:47 am A mistake to think that reading can substitute for living. Any author who believes he/she is more insightful than the person who has actually lived with the schizophrenic brother or the abusive spouse is delusional (and arrogant). Authors may be philosophers (who offer a different perspective), but they aren’t savants. I write fiction because I like the exploration (and the power of the words to create and magnify), not because I know more. ALSO, a fiction writer who intrudes in the story to the point where the readers stops and recognizes that the author is speaking has failed in that suspension of disbelief that transforms a book/story so completely that you feel as if you’ve lived that life.
steve onFebruary 16th, 2011 8:49 am either Herve is trying to sell some more books or is unfamiliar with Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.
Rebecca Joines Schinsky onFebruary 16th, 2011 8:52 am Oooh, Tanya. That is perfect.
Rebecca Rasmussen onFebruary 16th, 2011 9:09 am I love learning from books but I am all for learning from life too — it’s not an either/or for me 
Kerry onFebruary 16th, 2011 9:15 am I just finished this and had the same staggering halt when I came to that sentence. All I could do was bookmark the page (it was the first e-book I’d read, and I hated not being about to underline that sentence with a dramatic flourish), but it does make one think, doesn’t it? Personally, I don’t think life and books can be separated. Books teach us more and faster only if we can apply that knowledge to our own experiences, not in place of it. Love dogearedcopy’s comment.
Kerry´s last blog ..Reflections- Age of Innocence Part I- by Edith Wharton
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Rachel onFebruary 16th, 2011 12:11 pm I think that books can teach us a lot, but an attentive man/person will learn more effectively from life, not from books. Because being attentive means absorbing the world around you and reading is not the world. In fact, I’d argue that relying on books to learn about life is actually going to be more of a disservice to learning. What a backwards statement. Books might help you process that learning, but they aren’t going to do it for you.
Rachel´s last blog ..Happy Valentine’s Day
Alyce onFebruary 16th, 2011 12:54 pm I think there is some truth to the statement, but real life interactions hold such a different power and aspect of learning. I agree a lot with what Sarah said above about reading not being able to substitute for living.
Obviously I love learning from reading, and I think there is great value in learning from the experiences of others via books, but the learning from one should not be to the exclusion of learning from the other.
Alyce´s last blog ..The Summerhouse – Review
Ti onFebruary 16th, 2011 1:14 pm I think good authors encourage us to reflect on our own lives, but I wouldn’t call that “teaching.”
As much as I love reading, I don’t think reading alone can substitute for real-life experiences.
Ti´s last blog ..Introducing…Chloe!
Vee onFebruary 16th, 2011 2:08 pm Just to play the devil’s advocate, this could say more about the way said “attentive” man lives his life. Perhaps he doesn’t read his life with quite the same vigor as he reads his books.
Since I haven’t read the book, and probably this was not what he meant, no, I don’t think we learn more from books than from life – or, at least, we shouldn’t.
Vee´s last blog ..BBB Book Club- Ape House- Chs 13-25
Florinda onFebruary 16th, 2011 5:52 pm I think I’ve learned an awful lot about how people tick from fiction – as a reader, I can get inside a character’s head in ways that I never could with a real live person, because the author brings me in. In life, I can only know people through what they show and tell me; fiction takes me behind the scenes.
However, because I’ve been behind the scenes, I have a greater frame of reference and basis for understanding the people I encounter outside of books.
That quote sounds like a restatement of the “book smarts vs. street smarts” question. The wisest people seem to have some of each.
Florinda´s last blog ..Book Talk- At Home- A Short History of Private Life- by Bill Bryson
Rebecca Joines Schinsky onFebruary 16th, 2011 6:33 pm I agree that this is certainly a statement about the character and his way of thinking, but even the character accepts it so nonchalantly that it gave me pause. Just had to discuss!
Penina Zussman onFebruary 17th, 2011 3:13 am Ooh, Rebecca! Excellent question…
I think this takes us back to that age-old ponderation: does art mimic life, or does life mimic art? Or, for the less philosophically inclined among us: which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I am always struck by how watching the movie before reading the book makes for such a different experience than does reading the book before watching the movie. The characters, the plot, the dialogue-it’s usually the same (or at least very similar). The message the author meant to get across is often preserved quite nicely in the film version of his work. So could one be excused for thinking that experiencing the story, whether through reading or viewing, is one and the same experience? Debatable…
I believe your question is a similar one. Assuming most people reading this blog have experienced that total immersion of self into a masterfully crafted piece of writing, I can safely say that your readers are no strangers to the powerful impact such a book has on us as people. But as much as we feel might identify with the character or author or story…is it really the same as living through the issue for ourselves?
@dogearedcopy, thank you for capturing my thoughts so succinctly.
Nils Montan onFebruary 17th, 2011 11:52 am I can’t say I learned a lot from reading War and Peace, but Anna Karenina is another story (well, of course it is). In the book “Top Ten” which surveyed 125 contemporary authors and their list of top ten novels, Anna Karenina came in as the number 1 novel of all time (War and Peace was third, Madame Bovary second).
There is good reason for the top spot. This is with out doubt the greatest novel ever written and ever likely to be written. It is much more than the “Greta Garbo” Hollywood versions that many people have been exposed to. It’s a treatise on love, fidelity, the search for God and what makes people truly happy.
If you haven’t read it ~ you are in for a treat.
Nils Montan´s last blog ..Literature cited for Real Science – Golf Course Industry Magazine
nomadreader (Carrie) onFebruary 17th, 2011 4:56 pm Not to go to meta, but if we’re all learning from books instead of life, where do the ones who write books learn? If they’re only learning from books, then is there anything worth writing again if it’s all already been written? Or, when did that start being true? There weren’t always books.
nomadreader (Carrie)´s last blog ..book review- Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli
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