What Novels Make Me Feel

“I like nonfiction books.”

A common sight in the Twittersphere. And it makes sense. People want to get ahead. There are ladders to climb, companies to build, mental models to acquire. I like nonfiction books, too. 

But hearing someone specify that they only like nonfiction books makes me feel ever-so-slightly sad. When I glance over my vanity list of books I’ve read, my eyes always fall back on the novels. Long after I’m done reading, novels are the ones I still feel. 

I love reading novels. Here’s why: 

You can live multiple lives.
We learn best from firsthand experience. Personal lessons learned resonate more than secondhand advice from others. This brings a problem: we only get one life to live. We can’t run 100 Monte Carlo simulations to see how different life paths turn out. We must commit. That’s the game of life.

Novels offer a cheat code. You get a glimpse of other life paths – where decisions lead, and what they feel like. You learn from others’ mistakes. When facing a difficult decision, you have a stable of lived lives in your mind from which to draw insights. 

You’ll be humbled.  

I’m not sure how internal life feels across the decades, but my 20s have been turbulent. I swing from driven and practical to breathlessly idealistic. Late-night talks with friends feel urgent, like we’re closing in on some solid-ground answers buried within, if we could just get out what’s inside. And on we talk, and up becomes down, and suddenly we’re searching for patterns in a Jackson Pollock painting. 

By now I get it: the racing thoughts can never be fully expressed. No matter how earnestly we share, we’re all asymptotes, growing slightly closer while remaining infinitely far apart. Rainer Maria Rilke puts it best: 

Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered. 

So what’s the solution? How to respond to the mix of exhilaration and despair that comes when you lock eyes with the big paradox? I’ve found meeting characters in classic books helps. It’s humbling to read a description of the human condition from the 1880s so poetic as to make you feel like a JV schlub admiring a big leaguer. Not only have others felt similar emotions before – they’ve also been described in far richer language than I’ve ever even come close. Reading great fiction knocks me off my navel-gazing pedestal and into the applauding crowd. 

You channel the enthusiasm of youth.

I once saw a tweet about reading fiction when you’re young. I forget the author but remember the message: 

Read novels when you’re young, when your passion for life burns strongest. Novels help you channel fiery feelings. Don’t face the swirling emotions alone. See your questions through the eyes of great characters who already lived them. 

I’m not sure what life looks like at 50 or 75. I hope wild desires for the big picture never go away, and I’m sure for some they never do. But I realize that practicalities (mortgages, college funds) might one day douse these embers into a foolish pile of ash. For now, though, they still burn bright. And so I read novels to stir my internal self and fuel the search.