What knowledge do you gain from reading fiction books?
>>25543554Insight into the nous (νοῦς). This cannot be quantified, for it defies expectation.
Kind of a shit genre, but well-researched historical fiction is actually a better way to get you to understand a time period than some dry narrative history. You can understand the whole sequence of major events, but if you're never absorbed the atmosphere of the age, you know nothing.
>>25543554The knowledge of how to make up lies and propaganda and manipulate people.
>>25543554I could tell you exactly but since you seem a bit of a dumbo I'll just give you a different answer by asking this question:What knowledge do you gain from watching anime?
>>25543554Empathy and The human condition
>>25543554Vivisection of the human mind and its library of operations.
>>25543554The knowledge the author brings. Next question.
>>25543554Why do you ask, are you some cuck who thinks it's wrong to do things just for enjoyment?
>>25543554I don't read fiction to "gain knowledge"
Americans always unwillingly out themselves with this weird obsession with the utility of fiction. Other languages don't even differentiate between fiction and nonfiction, it's all just "books".
>>25544433Wow other languages sure are primitive
>>25543554A shitton you retard
>>25543554If you're "gaining knowledge" from fiction it's because you're not reading enough science or philosophy or history. Fiction "serves" the same "purposes" of music or paintings.
>>25543554The Indian push on /lit/ to make people think fiction is a waste of time was truly the final nail in the coffin for this board.
>>25543554>watches anime>thinks all art are hollow and mundane like themMany such cases, happens to comic or YA readers too
>>25543554Knowledge of literature
Fight Club taught me how to make bootleg napalm.
Ever since I started reading a lot again I've been having extremely vivid dreams of surreal alien landscapes. I don't even read fantasy or anything like that, the imagery is unlike anything I've ever imagined and fills me with a sense of pure wonder.
>>25543554an intuitive knowledge of human behavior. if you read enough fiction you'll find entirely new situations feeling familiar and navigable to you.
>>25543554Living in a capitalist society has tricked you into thinking that you need to be constantly engaged in productive activity. There's nothing wrong with doing things that have no purpose other than simple pleasure. If you enjoy reading fiction then that's enough to justify it even if you don't "gain knowledge".Your life is not a race to accumulate material things. You will lose every last bit of all that hard won "knowledge" the second you die.
>>25543554Knowledge of cool quotes to adorn the comment section
>>25543619>>25543990>>25544433>>25544487>>25544730Reading is known to be more laborious activity than watching movies for instance. What makes you put up with all of that work when there are other forms of entertainment that are easier to consume?
>>25544738I have never in my life considered reading to be "laborious" and I can only assume that this is a complaint exclusive to people with a room temperature IQ.That aside, you don't have to pick and choose one type of media to consume. Movies are better for seeing a director's complete vision whereas reading is always going to by necessity leave the majority up to your imagination. But if that act of engaging your imagination to flesh out a scene is something you consider difficult then all I can say is that you need to do a lot more reading until it stops feeling that way.
Learnt much about politics reading Tokien. Not something academicfags would understand though.
>>25543554What knowledge do you gain from reading non-fiction books?
>>25543554Oh you can learn all manner of things from fiction, not least of which are moral or philosophic lessons. Many fictional stories also include very real elements--for example if you read Moby Dick you are going to learn more about whales and whaling than you ever thought you'd know. If you read The River Why, you will understand angling to such an absurd degree by the end that you will be able to talk with fishermen who have been angling their entire lives and fool them into believing you also fish.And of course if you read any of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin seriese, or preferably all of it, you will learn quite a bit about the Royal Navy in the Napoleanic period, how ships of sail functioned, what their terminologies were, how the ranks of the navy were structured, how to maneuver a frigate in the wind, and all manner of other fun facts which, while perhaps immaterial in the modern day with the advent of electricity and modern shipcraft, are nonetheless interesting and fascinating topics.Fiction is not just about the characters and the story, it can also very often contain genuinely elucidating content that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Why just the other day I able to repeat some trivial carpentry tidbit because I'd read it in the Scavenger Trilogy, I think it was that the crossbars on the interior of a roof are called collar beams.
>>25544433>"Americans are more nuanced and have a better developed literary tradition than we do"Good heavens what a thing to say.
