what we mean when we "enjoy" fiction
Two slightly related things have made me a bit thinky about what we mean when we like/love/enjoy a book/film/television show/character/etc.
The first is this fascinating post by
thefourthvine, in which she describes an epiphany in which even after 18 years, she and her partner realized they mean quite different things when they talk about "enjoying" a book.
(An unrelated aside: at the bottom of each Dreamwidth profile page, there's a very long piece of code that allows you to create a DW user tag outside of DW! This may really be more trouble than it's worth, but I'm kind of glad it exists. I've been thinking more about using my DW account more, especially since they've introduced the cut tag thing of awesomesauce, but in the meantime, now I know how to link without crossposting. And the DW thoughts are for another post.)
The second thing was this comment exchange with runawaynun, about the difference (if there is one) between "liking" Irina Derevko and finding her irresistibly compelling. I said that I didn't think I'd want to have a beer with her or anything, but that I definitely wanted her on my television at all times!
And so I've been thinking of the various things I mean when I say I "love" something fictional (that seems to be the easiest umbrella term here): the miles of difference between the books that I just can't put down in the moment but later forget, and the ones that are painful to read but so worth having read; between the shows that make me think, "I see why this is dreadful, but I love it!" and the shows that make me think, "I see why this is brilliant, but it's hard for me to face another episode of it!"; between the characters I adore as characters because they're so difficult and wonderful and make me think--but who would scare me to death as people--and the characters who, if they were real, I'd want to have as friends or lovers.
You should go read thefourthvine's post (ah, look, I'm over the DW user code thing already...), but I'll summarize the crux of it: she defined an "enjoyable" book as one that gave her lots to think about, whereas her partner defined an "enjoyable" book as one she looks forward to reading.
I find I use both definitions to describe my experience with very different kinds of fiction. Maybe part of this is the whole academic literary studies thing (and because the books I study tend so often to be maddeningly difficult, on purpose), but I have sharp-ish divides between books that I enjoy intellectually and analytically (more like thefourthvine's definition) and those that I enjoy more emotionally (in the sense of looking forward to reading them, not being able to put them down, etc.).
I derive enjoyment in the first sense from, say, Ulysses: from reading it, from writing about it, from teaching it (all of which I have done multiple times). There's a pleasure in unraveling, dissecting, thinking about it--it is an enjoyable novel in that sense. I have NEVER looked forward to reading Ulysses. And I feel similarly about a lot of the other books I read for work. There's a great deal of pleasure there, and many of those kinds of books are among my all-time favorites (books like Mrs. Dalloway and The House of Mirth, and even Richardson's Clarissa, which is simultaneously the most loathesome, most compelling, and most all-consuming reading experience I've ever had--and I find that most people who manage to get through the damned thing feel similarly about it).
On the other hand, there are the books that I just can't put down. I first read Possession while delayed in an airport: not only did I hardly notice the delay, but when the plan landed, I was disappointed that we'd arrived because I wasn't quite finished with the book (this was a trip home to see my family--whom I love and hadn't seen in six months). This is the way I read as a child: absolutely voraciously, at every opportunity, instigating a rule that books were banned from the dinner table. The fact that most of what I read this way these days is fanfic makes me fear that grad school has ruined me on more levels than I'm even actively aware of.
There is not, of course, a neat way of dividing what "kind" of books I enjoy in which way. It has little to do with the canon of English literature (which is a relatively recent and variously problematic historical construct anyway), and I suspect that if I hadn't wound up working primarily in a field where lots of people tried to make fiction difficult on purpose, I wouldn't have as much correlation between work books/analytical enjoyment and fun books/can't-put-it-down enjoyment. (For instance, there are plenty of canonical Victorian novels in my second category.) The most fun books, perhaps, are the ones that do both: the ones that I look forward to reading and that leave me a lot to do intellectually and analytically. But they're also the ones I could never do actual academic work on, because I'm a little afraid of losing the sheer delight of the second kind of enjoyment through spending too much time on the first. (If you're ever mad enough to do grad work in English lit: work on something that you like a lot but which is not your favorite thing. Because you will hate it at some point, and you never want to hate your favorite book!)
Television, for me, runs in a fairly similar way, though it is fortunately not tinged by the whole work thing. I look forward to watching Castle and Lie to Me and Bones, even though I would not argue that they are particularly brilliant shows (though Castle is, I think, an excellent example of its genre in a way the others are not). On the other hand, some of the shows that I know are brilliant prove difficult for me to want to watch. I watched the first season of The Wire, appreciate that it's some of the most well-done television I've ever seen, and have not managed to get in the frame of mind to watch any more of it. My roommate has been pushing Mad Men, and so far I haven't made it past the second episode (more on that later, perhaps). Again, my favorites are the ones that do both. The two shows that have most managed to obsess me, Farscape and the first 3 1/2 seasons of BSG, were shows that I couldn't wait to watch and that I also couldn't stop thinking about and analyzing. (I suspect there would be more books I feel this way about, incidentally, if the work thing weren't so fraught. Again with the various ways that grad school has ruined my life.)
And then there are the characters. In some ways, this is the most interesting part, because my favorite characters are rarely people I'd really want to know as people. Laura Roslin would scare the everliving shit out of me! And I certainly wouldn't want her as my president (at least not now; she might be a good choice after a robot apocalypse, though). And let's add Sarah Connor to Irina Derevko on the list of people I would NOT want to have a beer with! Yet these are my favorite kinds of characters: they make my brain happy. And even when they're making me uncomfortable, I always want to watch more of them.
The characters I think I'd actually really like, if they were flesh-and-blood humans, are typically very different kinds of characters. I would totally have a beer with Cameron Mitchell or Gillian Foster. Actually, I would very likely consider marrying either of them. (I also sort of want to pair them both with Sam Carter, whom I would also totally have a beer with but not marry. I may have to be talked down from a Sam Carter/Gillian Foster crossover fic of "wtf, pellucid, no one but you cares about this!" but, well, that's probably also a post for another moment.) There are a few characters that both make my brain do thinky things and make me want to hang out with them--James Ellison and CJ Cregg, for example, though I suspect I'd have to work on not being intimidated by CJ if we were having a beer!
Anyway, I've rambled long enough, and I don't really have a conclusion or, indeed, an overall point, other than to point out what is probably obvious: when I say that I "enjoy" something fictional, that can mean many, many different things. And one of the things I find so interesting about fandom is the way we all hang out in this space sharing love for stories and characters when in fact we often mean really different things by a statement like "I love Laura Roslin."
The first is this fascinating post by
thefourthvine, in which she describes an epiphany in which even after 18 years, she and her partner realized they mean quite different things when they talk about "enjoying" a book.
(An unrelated aside: at the bottom of each Dreamwidth profile page, there's a very long piece of code that allows you to create a DW user tag outside of DW! This may really be more trouble than it's worth, but I'm kind of glad it exists. I've been thinking more about using my DW account more, especially since they've introduced the cut tag thing of awesomesauce, but in the meantime, now I know how to link without crossposting. And the DW thoughts are for another post.)
The second thing was this comment exchange with runawaynun, about the difference (if there is one) between "liking" Irina Derevko and finding her irresistibly compelling. I said that I didn't think I'd want to have a beer with her or anything, but that I definitely wanted her on my television at all times!
And so I've been thinking of the various things I mean when I say I "love" something fictional (that seems to be the easiest umbrella term here): the miles of difference between the books that I just can't put down in the moment but later forget, and the ones that are painful to read but so worth having read; between the shows that make me think, "I see why this is dreadful, but I love it!" and the shows that make me think, "I see why this is brilliant, but it's hard for me to face another episode of it!"; between the characters I adore as characters because they're so difficult and wonderful and make me think--but who would scare me to death as people--and the characters who, if they were real, I'd want to have as friends or lovers.
You should go read thefourthvine's post (ah, look, I'm over the DW user code thing already...), but I'll summarize the crux of it: she defined an "enjoyable" book as one that gave her lots to think about, whereas her partner defined an "enjoyable" book as one she looks forward to reading.
I find I use both definitions to describe my experience with very different kinds of fiction. Maybe part of this is the whole academic literary studies thing (and because the books I study tend so often to be maddeningly difficult, on purpose), but I have sharp-ish divides between books that I enjoy intellectually and analytically (more like thefourthvine's definition) and those that I enjoy more emotionally (in the sense of looking forward to reading them, not being able to put them down, etc.).
I derive enjoyment in the first sense from, say, Ulysses: from reading it, from writing about it, from teaching it (all of which I have done multiple times). There's a pleasure in unraveling, dissecting, thinking about it--it is an enjoyable novel in that sense. I have NEVER looked forward to reading Ulysses. And I feel similarly about a lot of the other books I read for work. There's a great deal of pleasure there, and many of those kinds of books are among my all-time favorites (books like Mrs. Dalloway and The House of Mirth, and even Richardson's Clarissa, which is simultaneously the most loathesome, most compelling, and most all-consuming reading experience I've ever had--and I find that most people who manage to get through the damned thing feel similarly about it).
On the other hand, there are the books that I just can't put down. I first read Possession while delayed in an airport: not only did I hardly notice the delay, but when the plan landed, I was disappointed that we'd arrived because I wasn't quite finished with the book (this was a trip home to see my family--whom I love and hadn't seen in six months). This is the way I read as a child: absolutely voraciously, at every opportunity, instigating a rule that books were banned from the dinner table. The fact that most of what I read this way these days is fanfic makes me fear that grad school has ruined me on more levels than I'm even actively aware of.
There is not, of course, a neat way of dividing what "kind" of books I enjoy in which way. It has little to do with the canon of English literature (which is a relatively recent and variously problematic historical construct anyway), and I suspect that if I hadn't wound up working primarily in a field where lots of people tried to make fiction difficult on purpose, I wouldn't have as much correlation between work books/analytical enjoyment and fun books/can't-put-it-down enjoyment. (For instance, there are plenty of canonical Victorian novels in my second category.) The most fun books, perhaps, are the ones that do both: the ones that I look forward to reading and that leave me a lot to do intellectually and analytically. But they're also the ones I could never do actual academic work on, because I'm a little afraid of losing the sheer delight of the second kind of enjoyment through spending too much time on the first. (If you're ever mad enough to do grad work in English lit: work on something that you like a lot but which is not your favorite thing. Because you will hate it at some point, and you never want to hate your favorite book!)
Television, for me, runs in a fairly similar way, though it is fortunately not tinged by the whole work thing. I look forward to watching Castle and Lie to Me and Bones, even though I would not argue that they are particularly brilliant shows (though Castle is, I think, an excellent example of its genre in a way the others are not). On the other hand, some of the shows that I know are brilliant prove difficult for me to want to watch. I watched the first season of The Wire, appreciate that it's some of the most well-done television I've ever seen, and have not managed to get in the frame of mind to watch any more of it. My roommate has been pushing Mad Men, and so far I haven't made it past the second episode (more on that later, perhaps). Again, my favorites are the ones that do both. The two shows that have most managed to obsess me, Farscape and the first 3 1/2 seasons of BSG, were shows that I couldn't wait to watch and that I also couldn't stop thinking about and analyzing. (I suspect there would be more books I feel this way about, incidentally, if the work thing weren't so fraught. Again with the various ways that grad school has ruined my life.)
And then there are the characters. In some ways, this is the most interesting part, because my favorite characters are rarely people I'd really want to know as people. Laura Roslin would scare the everliving shit out of me! And I certainly wouldn't want her as my president (at least not now; she might be a good choice after a robot apocalypse, though). And let's add Sarah Connor to Irina Derevko on the list of people I would NOT want to have a beer with! Yet these are my favorite kinds of characters: they make my brain happy. And even when they're making me uncomfortable, I always want to watch more of them.
The characters I think I'd actually really like, if they were flesh-and-blood humans, are typically very different kinds of characters. I would totally have a beer with Cameron Mitchell or Gillian Foster. Actually, I would very likely consider marrying either of them. (I also sort of want to pair them both with Sam Carter, whom I would also totally have a beer with but not marry. I may have to be talked down from a Sam Carter/Gillian Foster crossover fic of "wtf, pellucid, no one but you cares about this!" but, well, that's probably also a post for another moment.) There are a few characters that both make my brain do thinky things and make me want to hang out with them--James Ellison and CJ Cregg, for example, though I suspect I'd have to work on not being intimidated by CJ if we were having a beer!
Anyway, I've rambled long enough, and I don't really have a conclusion or, indeed, an overall point, other than to point out what is probably obvious: when I say that I "enjoy" something fictional, that can mean many, many different things. And one of the things I find so interesting about fandom is the way we all hang out in this space sharing love for stories and characters when in fact we often mean really different things by a statement like "I love Laura Roslin."