In Defense of Fiction

[Group of friends are gathered in a living room.]
Girl 1: Guys, I have to go.
Girl 2: WHAT??? It’s only like 9:30!
Boy 1: Why would you leave us??
Girl 1: I uhh have something I need to do.
[Awkward silence. Girl 1 gets up and leaves.]

Have you been in that situation before? I have. Until very recently, I was always Girl 2 and Boy 1.

However, I started reading Madeline L’Engle’s Time series (starting with A Wrinkle In Time #spoileralert), and my life is completely changed.

For the first time in my life, I’m the first to leave the party. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to make weekend plans. For the first time in my life, I feel slight pangs of guilt when I’m not with whatever book I’m reading. For the first time in my life, I actually want alone time. Because alone time with a book is NOT alone time.

I feel like I’m getting a peek into my Introvert friends’ social experience, and I must say it’s interesting.

One big lesson I’m learning is the huge, compelling power of fiction. Excluding my mission, the majority of my post-High School reading has been Education/ Psychology/ Philosophy books. I love those kinds of books, and I’ve learned a lot, but I don’t feel like my life was changed by many of them. A Wrinkle In Time changed my life.

I had a conversation about fiction vs. non-fiction with my brilliant cousin Anny a few weeks ago. I told her I (at the time) preferred non-fiction, because I felt it had more Truth. She immediately offered a countering opinion, that fiction in fact is more True than non-fiction, and I’ve come to agree with her. So much non-fiction is fabricated, falsified, and biased. Fiction has the liberty to say whatever it wants, which more often than not rings True.

Friends, I have a new fiction addiction. Tomorrow I will meet all 18 of my new students and their parents and/ or guardians (#politicalcorrectness), and part of my remaining task will be to get them all addicted with me. Just imagine an AA for book addicts. That’s my new mission.

Well, I’ve gotta wrap up. My book’s calling my name.