But someone who has mastered the skill of speed reading well enough will tell you with confidence -

what speed reading is a complex skill.

Speed ​​reading is not just the quick folding of letters into words and words into sentences. And it's not reading diagonally. This skill implies that a person has several skills:

1. Has a wide field of view.
2. Doesn't speak text.
3. Able to concentrate.
4. Possesses imaginative thinking.
5. Reads forward only, no backtracking.
6. Reinforces what has been read.

Here is such a moment: the information given below will be useful to you only if you think that you need it - to read fiction quickly. If you have the mindset “if only I could read fiction quickly, I would love to learn”, then these tips are for you. But, if you think that "what an utter heresy - to read fiction quickly!" - what Ford said, "you're right."

You can walk and have fun, or you can drive a sports car and have fun too. And you can do it equally well. It’s just that walking is a little more familiar, but in order to “drive”, you need to train.

So, the complex skill of speed reading. What can you do to read even more good books:

1. Increase the angle of view

If you have a wide angle of view, then you can read both self-education books and novels faster.

Someone has one word in their field of vision, someone has two. Less often - 3-4. But there are those who read in sentences and paragraphs. Yes, just like that - I looked at the paragraph and understood what was written. And moreover - presented in all its glory and remembered in detail. Because the angle of view is large and lateral peripheral vision developed. It can be trained. In I described how to do this using Schulte tables.

2. Learn to read without speaking

The duration of the audiobook "Smilla and her sense of snow" is 27 hours. Thus, if you say everything, you need to spend 27 hours to read this detective story. I read it in 4.

If you want to save dozens of hours, learn to read without internal pronunciation.

The process of reading ordinary person goes like this:

Saw - Spoken - Heard - Understood

And so - for a person who owns the skills of speed reading:

Saw - Understood

It happens that I stop and say some word that seems unusual, new, interesting. But reading every word like that is not a rational waste of time. And in order to feel all the charm of the language, to immerse yourself in beautiful pictures and get aesthetic pleasure, it is not at all necessary to read the book to yourself. You can understand it right away. And at any time you can return to normal reading with pronunciation.

There is simple exercises in order to learn to read without articulation:

1. While reading the text, do not pronounce the words, but count their number. Read one page in this way. Retell what you remember.
2. As you read, count to yourself from nine to one. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, nine, ... . Counting continuously, read one page. Retell what you remember.

3. Concentrate on the text

The time we think we spend reading is actually often spent on the following thought processes:

• reading;
• reproduction of the plot in the head;
• reading analysis;
• fantasizing (thinking, inventing);
• replaying past life events;
• planning.

The one who owns the skill of speed reading is completely focused on the first three points and does it all at the same time. At the time of reading, a person plays the plot in his head and makes an analysis of it. Simultaneously. It's all in the book. Note - not in your thoughts, but in a book.

The exercise “Point of Concentration of Attention” will help develop this skill.

focus point

The point of concentration of attention is located on the back of the head in the place where it is convex.

Close your eyes. Make sure to breathe deeply. Exhale a little slower than you inhale. Exhalation is a relaxation reflex. As soon as you feel relaxed while watching your breath, place your fingertips on the same spot on the back of your head. Be aware of touch. Concentrate very intensely on this touch to the back of your head with each breath. As you exhale, focus on lowering your shoulders.

Imagine holding an imaginary golf ball in your hand. You run your fingers along its wavy surface. Estimate the weight of this imaginary golf ball in your hand. Now mentally place it on the back of your head. To do this, bring your hand to this point again. Imagine that you remove your hand again, and the ball, as if magically, remains lying in this place. Concentrate intensely on that golf ball as you inhale, and as you exhale, focus on lowering your shoulders. Open your eyes and start reading.

Approximately here is the point of concentration of attention.

4. Develop creative thinking

Speed ​​reading is not only speed, but also the depth of the absorbed text. For those who read quickly, images also appear quickly. And most importantly, these images are very clear and bright even for abstract concepts.

After taking speed reading courses, many people say that reading is like watching interesting movie with all the characters, events, scenes that are described.

Try it the next time you're reading a book:

1. Clearly understand the meaning of the word, its meaning.
2. Mentally choose an image for each word.
3. Make the sounds louder, the picture brighter. Let it be an exciting 3d action, not letters on a page.
4. Be aware of what emotions, sensations and feelings correspond to each word.

Each time you will be easier and faster to launch your imaginative thinking.

5. Read forward only, no backtracking

Returning to what has already been read can be for two reasons. Or you fly away into the clouds and start thinking not at all about what is written in the book. In other words, you are distracted. Or I wanted to try the idea, because I liked it. And this can happen both when reading non-fiction literature and literary texts.

As for distractions, see point 3. As for the so-called conscious stops and returns, I can say that it is still not necessary to return to what has already been read. It is necessary to accustom the brain to grasp everything from the first reading. At first, this may seem very unusual. But very quickly the brain will get used to this way of reading. A pointer will help get rid of return movements.

Tony Buzan experiment

Imagine a perfect circle half a meter in diameter at a distance of 30-40 centimeters from the eyes directly in front of you. Circle her eyes slowly along the contour. If someone were watching you, he would say that the trajectory of your eyes is broken and jumpy. Perhaps you yourself have felt it. If you circle this circle with a pointer, then the trajectory will be smooth and smooth.

Eye movement without a pointer and with a pointer.

Pointer exercise

When you guide through text with your hand or pointer, it increases your attention and reading speed and reduces eye strain. The main thing is to follow the rule - the eyes follow the pointer, and not vice versa. Those. you set the speed with your hand, and your eyes only keep up with the movements of your hand. If it seems to you that the reading speed is slow at the same time - just increase hand speed.

6. Consolidate what you read

You can pin what you read while reading. This is called mental structuring.

Formulate the main idea after reading the chapter. You need to do this as quickly as possible - and read and summarize the main ideas very quickly so that you eventually start doing it in parallel.

You can draw mind maps in your mind - in parallel with reading, we draw a plot map on the inner background. You can try first for individual paragraphs: you read the paragraph - you fix a small mindmap in your mind.

And here is what you can do to fix a fully read book in your memory:

1. Retell the text.
2. Write out citations.
3. Take 10-20 minutes to memorize the written quotes.
4. 15 minutes to sit in silence, think, reflect on the book.
5. Formulate the main idea and conclusions in 3-5 sentences.
6. Write a mini essay.

All this will give you great opportunity analyze the text, express your thoughts, realize your feelings, activate thinking, develop analytic skills and memory.

The brake is in the head. human brain I'm used to working fast. My experience is that speed reading is applicable to literary texts. And if you need this skill - you can easily learn it. Do the exercises described in the article and follow the releases of the rubric to become a super reader and quickly meet the magnificent, beautiful, smart art books of our and past centuries from your wish-read list.

It can be said with absolute certainty that there is still no unambiguous answer to this question. Several different approaches are possible here.

How to read fiction? There is a very simple answer to this question: as artistic. But following this, obviously, the following question arises: what is the artistry of literature? If you are interested in this question, we recommend reading a book that fully reveals this concept: Gay N.K. Artistic Literature. - M., 1975. In our book, only the main approaches to the problem will be analyzed. It is not by chance that we consider this question, for there is literature called fiction, which, upon closer examination, is not such. In our opinion, it is very important to be able to understand this. To show the complexity and depth of the measurement problem artistic value, let's look at the graph shown in Fig. 41. This shows the dependence of the value of a work of art on a number of basic factors. Note that researchers led by the famous French scientist A. Mol consider this schedule to be universal for all types of art: literature, music, visual arts etc.

Rice. 41. Graph of the value of a work of art depending on a number of factors

As shown in the graph, a work of art is a message, characterized by the degree of complexity or amount of information, and this characteristic, in turn, depends on the culture of a given society. As shown in the graph, the value of a work varies with its complexity, following a curve that has a maximum at some point. This maximum is in progress historical development society and the growth of its culture is shifting. At the same time, it becomes blurred as a result of a more even distribution of cultural elements. In other words, the general evolution of art leads to the emergence of more and more refined and difficult to understand combinations of elements, that is, what is called incomprehensible in every era. How can I disagree with famous saying Goethe:

Everyone sees the world in a different way,

And everyone is right

So much meaning in it.

The science of art has long and stubbornly fought to decipher nature artistic creation. Each writer, based on the specific content of words, creates a literary text in which the combination of words is not arbitrary, but depends on the meaning and meaning of the constituent elements. As a result, the word receives a special, no longer verbal, but figurative meaning, which distinguishes a literary text from a scientific one, where everything is subject to logic, and only to it. Poetic content words suggest existence in the art world an infinite number of images. The essence of a truly artistic work is manifested in the fact that the word acts here not as a means of information or communication, but as an actor in whom they see not himself, but the image that he embodies. When a writer writes: “There was an apple in the world. It shone in the foliage, gently rotated, grabbed and turned with it pieces of the day, the blueness of the garden, the window sash ”(Yu. Olesha), then this is not the naming of objects in a word, but rather the transformation of words into objects, into visual images that arise in the mind reader while reading.

And here we come to the most important thing: what can quick reading give for perception fiction?

The main thing is not to speed up the reading process, but to deepen the aesthetic impact due to the development of visual, figurative components of thinking in the process of reading. It is no coincidence that many schoolchildren, after completing speed reading courses, noted a sharp increase in the visual components of the reading process. “It’s as if I’m not reading, but watching an interesting movie with all the characters, events, landscapes that are described in the book,” one of our listeners wrote.

M. Gorky, whose quick reading we talked about at the beginning of the book, read quickly literary texts precisely because he was distinguished by a vivid imagery of perception. Even as a child, while reading books, Alyosha Peshkov imagined what he read so clearly that he was struck by the magical power of the printed line and, not understanding the hidden in artistic word secrets, examined the pages to the light.

Is there an algorithm for reading works of art? Experts have developed three levels of penetration, or immersion, into a literary text, which are a kind of reading algorithms.

The first stage of immersion: understand the plot and plot. The writer resorts to a plot to show what the hero does, what he does, how he acts. The task of the reader is to keep track of all this, not to miss anything. This stage can be called "event" or "plot". All readers have it. Researchers have noticed that at this stage of perception, when retelling, many use mainly verbs denoting action. So, when retelling the film “Come to me, Mukhtar!” out of 175 words, there were 32 verbs denoting action, and only 1 - state. Up to 80% of young viewers are characterized by this level of perception.

Is it important to know the action - the plot? Undoubtedly. A good understanding of the plot and plot of a work means getting closer to understanding the psychology of the writer's work, his skill.

The art of the writer "to tell" - special art, which requires that, as the story progresses, the reader's interest increases all the time.

The second stage of immersion: the reader's ability to identify himself with the character, to compare his fate with the vicissitudes of his fate. At this stage of perception, it is required to understand the complex structure of relations between the characters, the motives of their likes and dislikes, actions and behavior - in artistic conflict works. This step can also be called "semantic". The reader, as in the first case, shows interest in acutely fabulous situations, but he is concerned not only with the fate of the characters, but also with their experiences. He feels more acutely his own feelings about his actions. actors. Everything sticks in my memory: the landscape, the setting, and appearance characters. Talking about the book, the reader conveys not only the actions (left, came, disappeared), but also the experiences of the characters (hates, loves, doubts).

The central, and often the only figure of the whole artistic creativity is a person. Impossible to imagine literary work without heroes, without characters, whatever species it may belong to. In lyrics, the author himself acts as a hero, in epic and drama, one or more heroes are always required.

When reading a work of art, we almost never go beyond human world, very similar to the real one, but at the same time not being a simple repetition of it. In convention literary images we do not doubt, but at times they take on such a reality for us that we reckon with them as truly existing.

The third stage of immersion: identification of the reader with the author-artist. It is called figurative-semantic. Its essence could be expressed famous words L. N. Tolstoy, who said that the reader picks up a book in order to see what kind of person the author is and what he, the author, has in his soul.

A work of art always reflects the level of the writer's personal aesthetic knowledge. Creative knowledge is, first of all, self-knowledge. The artist, creating a work, in one way or another expresses his vision of the world. This is one level. It can be described as a "small" world. The attitude of the writer environment, time, contemporaries can conditionally be called the "middle" world. This is another level. Big artist never stops at these levels. Both of them for him are the path leading to the knowledge of the big world, the macrocosm - the universe, humanity. Having clarified these levels of knowledge for ourselves, having determined their nature, we will come closer to understanding the “mystery of the author’s unity with his characters”, the secrets of the process of personal creativity, and, consequently, we will be able to more accurately understand what the writer wanted to say to his reader. It is important to establish what he knew, what the writer understood and what remained outside his consciousness, and what he, by virtue of different reasons, could not figure it out.

At the end of this conversation, read control text No. 9. Try to read as quickly as possible, but, most importantly, awaken in your mind vivid visual images, ideas of what the author is writing about. After reading the text, do not rush, as usual, to answer questions, sit, think, reflect. Check if you remember all the blocks of the integral reading algorithm, if there are any gaps.

Using the formula you know, calculate the reading speed and enter the result in the graph and table of your success.

Try to establish what relationship this story has to you. Good way define true value stories - determine what a given story means to you as a reader. Any story can mean completely different things to different people, but often a story that feels plausible to you will evoke similar feelings in another reader for a similar reason. For example, a literary work in which a boy's beloved dog dies may be especially close to your heart if you also had a dog in the past, but anyone who has experienced the unexpected loss of something or someone dear can understand the feeling of loss.

Reveal how history relates to human experience in general. If you've never been in the situation you're in main character think about how others might feel in it. For example, you may have had a troubled childhood, but a literary work about a teenager who has to grow up in a difficult environment or in a dysfunctional family, as a rule, aims to talk about the process of growing up in general, and is not addressed exclusively to those who have gone through such an experience.

Think about cultural connotations. Cultural connotations may refer to the place and time of the story, as well as the circumstances under which the author wrote his work. In the work of a writer whose writings were published at a time when women were greeted unenthusiastically in literary circles, there may be feminist overtones, even if the main plot of the story has nothing to do with feminism. An exiled author is likely to insert a political message into his work. The circumstances of an author's life often influence a literary work, regardless of its intentions.

Determine what the protagonist is looking for and fighting for. This applies primarily to conflict, but goes a little deeper. Ask yourself what the protagonist's conflict actually means, based on classic models. The boy who gets into a fight over a girl is clearly at odds with his rival, but he also fits the basic model of “hero” (good knight, prince, white hat cowboy, superhero) versus “villain” ( bad knight, a sorcerer, a cowboy in a black hat, a supervillain). Adding a love interest to wrestling is another common aspect of personal seeking.

Pay attention to the images used. Imagery refers to any sensory detail in a work: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile. The author may not have any purpose in describing what it is like to sit in a certain chair, but on the other hand, he may use such details to emphasize the subtext of the story. "Soft chair" may not mean anything, but if main character, who recently lost her grandfather, sits on his old rocking chair, noting that he exudes "softness and warmth", the sensory detail suddenly acquires new meaning, showing the state of mind of the heroine after the loss of a loved one.

Analyze the mood or tone. The tone of the work means the mood or atmosphere created. The choice of lexical means can set the tone. For example, bold, forceful statements can create an air of confidence or determination, while polite or diplomatic language can add some ambiguity. The tone also depends on the setting, the theme, and the behavior of the characters.

Look for symbolism. A symbol is any element of a story that expresses an abstract idea. Such an element can be an object, a place, a color, a season, a number, a letter, or any other concrete or material expression. The seasons, for example, are often used to represent the flow of life: spring symbolizes childhood and growing up, summer is the flowering of life, autumn is maturity and aging, and winter is the process of dying.

Identify themes and motifs. A theme is a fundamental idea discussed in a literary work, it can also be thought of as "what the story really means." Topics are usually explored and fleshed out in a series of works written by by different authors which gives the topic universal significance. A motif is a structure or technique used to develop the theme of a work. If in the work in question about the hero's struggle with depression, this struggle can be defined as a theme. Feelings of loneliness and hopelessness, which are emphasized, can be considered motives, as they serve to highlight the theme.

Consider other figures of speech and literary devices. Not every literary work uses the full set literary devices, but there are many techniques that can help determine the structure and meaning in a particular work. For example, irony and anticipation can help set the tone, while contrasting characters and stereotypes can provide contrast or support for the main theme.

sports, music, hiking. But where to get the time when all of it goes to study. Do you want to study successfully with a minimum investment of time? Here are some recommendations.

First, make the most of your time in class at school. Follow our guidelines for taking notes quickly, figure out everything you don't understand in class, and don't leave anything for later. writing down homework, simultaneously construct a model of its execution.

Second - after all, you have problems with some sections of the program being studied. Find additional literature on the topic and read it. You can find this literature yourself, or a teacher will help you. Remember: the more diverse literature you read on a particular topic, the easier and more accurately you will understand it.

For each subject, be sure to read the additional literature recommended by the teacher, as well as the one that you found on your own. Do not forget to write down the results of what you read.

3. Before the exam. Exams are a crucial stage of study. For you, this stage represents special interest: you must show teachers not only what you know from the program of the subject being studied, but also much of what came into your field of vision from additional literature. The foundation successful exam- this is a solid knowledge of the sections of the program. It is necessary to calmly repeat everything, remember, put it into the system. Once again, we remind you of efficient system repetition, set out in detail in the conversation on memory (see p. 126). What can fast reading give at this stage? After a deep and thorough study of the textbook with exam papers, it is very useful to read a few additional books on this topic by “storming” and fixing your attention on the most difficult and obscure problems for you.

Very soon you will feel: the exam is a joy for you, a way to demonstrate your knowledge that goes beyond the school curriculum.

Usually, our students, who have mastered the speed reading method and used it in preparing for exams, got into such a taste that they later told us that they regret the end of the exams.

It can be said with absolute certainty that there is still no unambiguous answer to this question. Several different approaches are possible here.

How to read fiction? There is a very simple answer to this question: as artistic. But following this, obviously, the following question arises: what is the artistry of literature? If you are interested in this question, we recommend reading a book that fully reveals this concept: Gay N.K. Artistic Literature. - M., 1975. In our book, only the main approaches to the problem will be analyzed. It is not by chance that we consider this question, for there is literature called fiction, which, upon closer examination, is not such. In our opinion, it is very important to be able to understand this. In order to show the complexity and depth of the problem of measuring artistic value, let's look at the graph shown in Fig. 41. This shows the dependence of the value of a work of art on a number of basic factors. Note that researchers led by the famous French scientist A. Mol consider this schedule to be universal for all types of art: literature, music, fine arts, etc.

Rice. 41. Graph of the value of a work of art depending on a number of factors

As shown in the graph, a work of art is a message, characterized by the degree of complexity or amount of information, and this characteristic, in turn, depends on the culture of a given society. As shown in the graph, the value of a work varies with its complexity, following a curve that has a maximum at some point. This maximum shifts in the process of the historical development of society and the growth of its culture. At the same time, it becomes blurred as a result of a more even distribution of cultural elements. In other words, the general evolution of art leads to the emergence of more and more refined and difficult to understand combinations of elements, that is, what is called incomprehensible in every era. How can one disagree with Goethe's famous statement here:

Everyone sees the world in a different way,

And everyone is right

So much meaning in it.

The science of art has long and stubbornly struggled to decipher the nature of artistic creation. Each writer, based on the specific content of words, creates a literary text in which the combination of words is not arbitrary, but depends on the meaning and meaning of the constituent elements. As a result, the word receives a special, not verbal, but figurative meaning, which distinguishes an artistic text from a scientific one, where everything is subject to logic, and only to it. The poetic content of the word implies the existence of an infinite number of images in the artistic world. The essence of a truly artistic work is manifested in the fact that the word acts here not as a means of information or communication, but as an actor in whom they see not himself, but the image that he embodies. When a writer writes: “There was an apple in the world. It shone in the foliage, gently rotated, grabbed and turned with it pieces of the day, the blueness of the garden, the window sash ”(Yu. Olesha), then this is not the naming of objects in a word, but rather the transformation of words into objects, into visual images that arise in the mind reader while reading.

And here we come to the most important thing: what can quick reading give for the perception of fiction?

The main thing is not to speed up the reading process, but to deepen the aesthetic impact due to the development of visual, figurative components of thinking in the process of reading. It is no coincidence that many schoolchildren, after completing speed reading courses, noted a sharp increase in the visual components of the reading process. “It’s as if I’m not reading, but watching an interesting movie with all the characters, events, landscapes that are described in the book,” one of our listeners wrote.

M. Gorky, whose rapid reading we spoke about at the beginning of the book, read literary texts quickly precisely because he was distinguished by a vivid imagery of perception. Even as a child, while reading books, Alyosha Peshkov imagined what he read so clearly that he was struck by the magical power of the printed line and, not understanding the secret hidden in the artistic word, examined the pages to the light.

Is there an algorithm for reading works of art? Experts have developed three levels of penetration, or immersion, into a literary text, which are a kind of reading algorithms.

The first stage of immersion: understand the plot and plot. The writer resorts to a plot to show what the hero does, what he does, how he acts. The task of the reader is to keep track of all this, not to miss anything. This stage can be called "event" or "plot". All readers have it. Researchers have noticed that at this stage of perception, when retelling, many use mainly verbs denoting action. So, when retelling the film “Come to me, Mukhtar!” out of 175 words, there were 32 verbs denoting action, and only 1 - state. Up to 80% of young viewers are characterized by this level of perception.

Is it important to know the action - the plot? Undoubtedly. A good understanding of the plot and plot of a work means getting closer to understanding the psychology of the writer's work, his skill.

The writer's art of "telling" is a special art that requires the reader's interest to increase all the time as the story progresses.

42 responses

Everything is very simple. Fiction is read in order to understand people and life, scientific literature is read in order to understand phenomena and objects.

You read an astronomy textbook when you want to figure out where the M35 galaxy is, but it's up to you to launch an orbiting telescope yourself. In the same way, you read Dostoevsky, because Dostoevsky can offer you that beauty will save the world, and thus save you from having to figure it out on your own skin - well, simply because technically launching a telescope can be more difficult, but emotionally after it you can still to function - whereas to find out for yourself that beauty will save the world, you can only become the one who can say about it. And if you still live without a telescope, then without beauty - it is unlikely.

In other words, it is a mediated experience that does not replace one's own, but shortens distances. Your own is still required, since the means for processing all this information also need to be developed from somewhere - literature will not do everything for you, it rather helps not to die along the way.

Of course, one can be deceived by the fact that it is as easy to live without beauty as without a telescope. This is a tempting thought. Moreover, if beauty really could save the world, then over the past 4 thousand years we must have accumulated enough of this beauty to save it. But apparently the world is not saved all at once, but one person at a time - and it just so happened that for some reason this person still needs it. Otherwise, literature would not literally be the first thing we supposedly started doing as soon as we dealt with the fire, the cave, and the stick. It's just that this need does not arise as clearly as the need for fire and a cave - it is more like air, which is noticed only when there is too little of it.

This necessary thing can be put off at 20, and at 30, and at 40, but sooner or later it will remind of itself - in the form of a feeling that something was missed, something was missing, somewhere there was some kind of thing , which could help, and it is not clear where she was, and what she even is. And most importantly - that the longer it is postponed, the more painful the awakening is. So you can safely increase knowledge - there will be no less sorrow anyway.

Well, if a person believes that he has already understood everything, and he does not need anything - well, then he can not read, for God's sake, it is still impossible to help him.

At one time, I thought about a similar point of view. You can agree with her if you perceive your brain and yourself as a computer that is not able to feel, remember, admire. I think it's more expensive to abandon fiction altogether. But I don’t advise you to read it either, it’s best to mix different styles, so the language is enriched, and it does not become boring. What is the meaning of fiction?

Fiction literature is different. Really good works can bring a lot of benefits, here are a few examples:

1) Language. How to study foreign language, and for studying one’s own, fiction is useful in that it reflects phraseological units, metaphors, comparisons inherent in specific language. Moreover, it takes into account the literary norm of the language, which should be followed, especially in the initial stages of studying it. As an exception, only Arabic comes to my mind: I talked a lot with Arabs about their language, I really want to learn it, but everyone as one says that it is better to choose a specific dialect, because literary norm very few understand

2) Culture, politics, history. You can cramming textbooks as much as you like intercultural communication, history and cultural studies, but it is fiction that will give you context, especially written by a representative of the country and era you are interested in.

3) Immersion. Quite an interesting phenomenon, it is studied a lot in psychology (for review, I can offer the work of Professor Dr. Arthur Jacobs / Arthur Jacobs). It consists in losing reality, immersing yourself in the book so much that you lose track of time and allow your brain to experience sensations akin to any hard drug. It is noteworthy that Harry Potter is the book with the highest rate of immersion among readers (link to the same Jacobs)

4) Salvation. I know it sounds trivial. But other people's fantasies can save you from sadness, find a new hobby in life, renounce worries for at least an hour.

I used to ask myself this question all the time. So far, at the level of understanding such ... The fact that these books are less informative in terms of encyclopedic knowledge, which is now fashionable, is yes. Then the science-pop is in your hands and everything is extremely simple and clear, the main thing is to understand.
But, as it seems to me, fiction is valuable in other ways, namely, the fact that you, reading a certain book, become the main character, and the experience that the characters experience will undoubtedly reflect on you yourself.
Having recently read The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night, I realized how wonderful the life of an autistic person is. And these two days of reading, my "mental" has deviated a little from the abstract standard that we consider the norm. And there are some. And I "appeared" in his shoes.
Those. for me, a work of art is the experience of another person, experienced by myself. Virtual reality, only instead of a helmet - a book.

Last time I heard this opinion from a person who wastes time with benefit - this is with a bottle and a glass at the TV. This person - yes, other people's fantasies are not needed.

For a small percentage of people, books are truly a waste of time. This applies to those who read in order to pay tribute to fashion.

The rest of the people somehow remain in the black from every book they read. Firstly, fiction is not only fantasy (someone's fantasies, so to speak), but also works based on real events, let's say historical novels. In addition, Remarque's works cannot be called historical, but the situation in Germany during the First World War is easily visible in them. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" gave me ideas about Patriotic war more than a history textbook (in fact, I'm strong in history, don't think about it). Secondly, detectives make you rack your brains along with the main characters, and works with understatement in the final, oh, how they make you think. And, finally, fantasy does not work throughout the entire reading, how many images and landscapes we draw a shell in our thoughts.

Nobody forces you to read fiction if you don't like it.
If you go through the pros, then:
1. Reading thin. Literature develops figurative thinking, which, in fact, is responsible for the creative component of human development.

2. Reading allows us to experience events with characters, as in real life, to get feelings in those situations in which the characters of the work find themselves. Sometimes it just turns the reader's life upside down, and he corrects his attitude towards it.

3. Fiction, and literature in general, forms our worldview by evaluating the behavior of characters (if at least some analysis of what is happening is carried out, and not just reading letters), comparing other views on life.

4. good literature develops spoken language.

5. Have a good time.

Fiction shapes life position, if the reading is conscious, not consumer. I've known people who read to pass the time, like they're watching a stupid movie. I don’t understand such people, I think that if you read something, then take everything seriously, as a philosophical treatise, look for a deeper meaning, otherwise, indeed, reading will be no different from watching stupid films.

It takes quite a long time, but it's worth it! And, especially, the more books a person reads, the more the speed of his reading increases!

A book... This is something more than the meaning inherent in this word... The emotions that a person receives when reading a book cannot be compared with films, or with listening to audio books, or even, strangely enough, with theater. Films and theater are how a director or director sees a book. People who read the same book will never have the same impression! They may be similar, but still very different. When a person reads a book, a picture of the action emerges in his imagination, and, while reading, we roughly imagine how it all looks like. Therefore, the development of the imagination is added to the pluses of reading!

And even though instructive, the plus side of the book is that it brings pleasure. Imagine! You are cozy, under a blanket with a cup of tea, you settled down with your favorite book! After all, this feeling is not transmitted with anything else!

Do not love and that's okay - Sherlock Holmes also did not like and was an excellent specialist. You can’t make love, read through force if it doesn’t bring you pleasure, it makes no sense. Grow where you are motivated

I explain to myself such statements as very straight forward thinking. Such people can be smart and filled, but for some reason (whether they were originally given, or they didn’t set themselves up in time), they are comfortable perceiving information without a filter. If, for example, you are experiencing problems in communication, you can read direct advice and communication techniques. Apply something, discard something. Or you can read fiction, where, using the example of the life of heroes, you will see similar situations, you can analyze how you would act in their place, etc. For me it tastes better

This is the ABC of life. Why learn from your mistakes if most of them are archetypal? :))

Another thing - not everyone is able to read the codes of works of art. This is another reason why you should read the classics. "Encryption" must be comprehended consistently and in its entirety. Not a single segment or layer of culture will be understandable or useful to you without knowledge of other existing ones.

Classical literature is knowledge about the world, but unlike scientific literature is knowledge about inner world man, his nature, motives, searches.

Mankind is like a child - it grows, develops, goes through crises, matures. The history of this growing up is classical literature and art in general.

Ps - I don't think it's worth getting hung up on must read, you have the right to create your own list, take unknown classics if they annoy and seem "blurred" familiar stories. And yet the usual is worth reading for yourself, because - believe me! - no retelling will give what it gives full text, and also in each classic book(probably, that's why it is a classic) there is always at least a line addressed specifically to you and at this very moment. The magic of genius, apparently :)

Good fiction is not written just like that - it necessarily answers a certain question, asked either by the author in the context of his own experience, or society in the context of the historical process.

Reading the classics of literature or modern literary texts, you either adopt certain experiences, discover new images/systems of thinking that the author puts into the characters to reveal a personal problem, or you get A New Look on the mentality of certain social groups specific historical periods, or a description of certain historical processes from the perspective of the person experiencing them.

In short, educate/broaden your horizons.

P.S. Well, about the aesthetic pleasure from beautiful language should not be forgotten)

Fiction also develops the ability to analyze, since in the process of reading you begin to think out the plot, to assume different variants development of events. Anatoly Wasserman spoke about this in detail. Of course, it is impossible to refuse fiction, but to go in cycles only in a certain direction, all the more so.

1. Recording someone's fantasies is not fiction in any way.

4. Fiction, like other arts, uses imaginative thinking as a (very effective) tool. Those. if you have not developed the instrumental (applied) function of the imagination, then you will not do anything in art. Good example- Chernyshevsky. Brilliant counter and artistic impotence.

5. A real literary work is an addictive game. It's like good football match. If you understand the meaning of what is happening, it can give an unforgettable experience.

Reading is an experience that we get by giving our time. You can, of course, reach everything with your mind and your mistakes, but, as the popular proverb says, smart people don't study. Sometimes a book can turn the whole habitual course of life upside down and open up a whole ocean of possibilities that we didn’t even know existed.

I read because I'm used to it. While studying at the university, we were loaded with huge lists of literature, studied domestic and foreign. But as student years came to an end, there were no lists, and I seemed to start to suffocate. I had to compose them myself :) Reading, like a sport, keeps me in good shape.

There are so many heroes and stories in the world and I want to know as much as possible. And also, it is very difficult for me to communicate with people, but I want to communicate. Here I am reading.

Reading is a walk to new places, worlds, as well as new situations and acquaintances. That's why I open the book again and again :)

Most primitive image Reading, according to Nabokov, I simply plunge into the fabric of the plot and live for some time in this trance.

That is, the same function as other ways of forgetting. Pleasant oblivion.

For knowledge of oneself and the world around, for development, for the soul. Reading fiction, we gain experience that we cannot get in real life, we learn to imagine ourselves in the place of another person, we develop imagination.

Even if you ignore the fact that the question itself is a mistake, and proceed from the wrong premise that fiction is nothing more than someone else's fantasies, the answer is still no. These fantasies are somehow built according to a certain principle. And this principle is that the development of the plot on the example of events invented by the author explains how people and the relationship between them are arranged. And explains more or less correctly. Otherwise, the work does not become popular and does not receive recognition. I do not think that the process of obtaining knowledge about how people work can be considered a waste of time. If this is a loss, then what is not? more important in practical sense knowledge does not exist. Without understanding this issue, it is hardly possible to achieve at least something in life. And the only alternative way to get such an understanding is through personal experience. But this method is extremely inefficient.

can lead specific example. There is such a thing as love. The knowledge of what it is is transmitted only through the art form. For a long time it was only literature. Now there is an alternative in the form of films. You can also watch "House 2". But this is too vulgar form. Despite the fact that she solves her task, after all educated person with good taste is not suitable. So we don't consider this option at all. Movies can be counted with a stretch. Of course, they give some basic understanding of the issue, but nothing more. In addition, on the basis worthwhile movie about love, as a rule, there is a book, in relation to which the film itself is secondary. So, by by and large, outside of fiction there is no adequate description of what love is. What does this mean in practice? And what if a person has not read in his life at least a few art books about love, he simply does not understand what it is. The word itself means nothing to him. He roughly guesses how to use it, but does it purely mechanically, using formulaic expressions that he has heard from other people. He does not understand the meaning of this word. When other people discuss it, he does not understand at all what it is about. Some even believe that love does not exist, that this is some kind of fake.

If we go a little beyond the scope of the question, then it is worth saying that far from any literature, being artistic in form, is 100% fiction and fantasy. Works of art contain a lot of such information that the author did not come up with himself, but gleaned from some sources. And at the same time, it is presented to the reader not in a boring academic form, but is carefully thrown in small portions in the course of development. interesting plot. For example, the action of Chase's detectives takes place in the United States, where he himself did not live. All information to describe the context of the events he invented was taken from documentary sources. Moreover, there are works that describe certain things so accurately and in detail that they contain much more truth than fiction. If someone is interested in how an airport, hospital, hotel or bank functions, then you can read the relevant works of Arthur Hailey. Formally, this works of art with a plot, but as a result of reading you learn a lot of such nuances that are usually described in non-fiction texts. Or if you are interested in how an elite American university works, then Tom Wolfe's book "I am Charlotte Simmons" will remove all questions. It is evident that the author came up only with the plot. Everything else he carefully studied and simply stated in art form. In general, fiction is not as fictional as it might seem.

I will add to what has already been said here: for the sake of developing my speech. Reading scientific literature that is useful from an applied point of view will help little in this matter, since only fiction provides an excellent example of describing various, often very real, plausible situations using language tools. Again, let's not forget the extension vocabulary. Well, a person with a good, competent speech (both verbally and in writing) always looks advantageous, if only for the reason that he can clearly, clearly, intelligibly and, at the same time, formulate his thoughts in detail.

Speech cannot be developed by literature, but it can be developed by the practice of this very speech. Follow your every word, carefully think through the designs and so on. - all this with practice will bring to a beautiful speech. And without literature, which does not play a role in this. As for the increase in vocabulary - debatable. To memorize a word, it is not enough to read it once somewhere. At least 10 times it is necessary to repeat it within a week. It's easier to look in a dictionary, it's faster and more practical

Reply

The direct and clear answer to your question is no. I even to some extent adhere to the opposite point of view - it seems to me that nonfiction is now popular (all these biographies, stories about a unique personal experience etc.) is in many ways castrated fiction. These stories, of course, can be exciting, they can carry some kind of unique experience, but at the same time they are devoid of the author’s real work - there is no composition, no defining details, no game of the author and reader, as well as no several layers of meaning. In life and the nonfiction based on it, details and events are accidental, while in fiction any movement, any meeting of characters, all the objects that they use appear in the text to bring meaning, to play their well-defined role, to show something. To see what and why is introduced into a work, skill is needed, the work of the reader is needed. To arrange things and characters so that they convey the desired meaning, the work of the author is needed. Thus, non-fiction is almost completely deprived of both components, leaving the text with a single, not even narrative, informational function.

It is worth starting with what goals you are pursuing, decide on this first.

So, let's take a look at the points that fiction gives:

1. Expands vocabulary, improves speech, complicates syntactic constructions, etc., which is associated with improved practical skills in the language.

2. Develops imaginative thinking. Tested on personal experience: together with mathematics, fiction gives incredible results- perception improves, it is much easier to think, conclusions are made faster.

3. Expansion of the emotional horizon: you really experience the situations that the characters are in (is this not a life experience?).

And this is if you take practical benefit but there is also the option of reading for pleasure, reading a good book in a pleasant environment.

Good luck setting your goals!

Of course it's worth it! Personally, I do not see any disadvantages in this (except for the deterioration of vision), but there are a lot of pluses. So, reading in general is a very useful activity in itself, it develops thinking, erudition, attentiveness, perseverance, and imagination. When we read classic literature, we remember the spelling of words and the correct construction of sentences. The classics make us think, because the author offers us his vision of the world (problems, man, the meaning of life), we live together with the hero of the book and try to solve his problems with him or find a way out of situations. Reading classical literature, you get used to correctly and beautifully express your thoughts, gain useful experience and advice taken from books, become more developed spiritually, reconsider your views on life (love, family, friendship), develop culturally. Besides, are you really not interested in how people lived in the past? their conversations, life, difficulties, joys?

Separately, I want to note that every citizen of his country needs to read as much as possible classical works your compatriots, because they reflect the traditions and culture, problems and history of the formation of your country.

For me personally, this is a classic. inexhaustible source patriotism. Yes, I agree, not all writers write interesting and understandable, but you just need to find your own. For example, I am delighted with the novel "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy, but I just can't stand "Crime and Punishment" by F. Dostoevsky.

That's all :) read, develop and become better!

To broaden your horizons, if you read the classics, you can, for example, roughly imagine what life was like at the time when they lived. And the vocabulary is very much pumped. In general, it is useful to read, especially if it is not only thin literature.

Well, judge for yourself.

Fiction - like art in general - reflects the era in which it developed. That is, contains the core of culture and the shadow of history
Plus, the literature contains many ideas that reflect all human values.
In addition, reading literature is a replenishment of vocabulary, which in turn helps communicate smarter and more pleasantly- both for themselves and for interlocutors.
Well, yes, if you ever want to write yourself- then there is nowhere without reading, all the writers unanimously repeat about this.

Something like this.

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If purely pragmatically, then in the majority it is thin. works describe the characters of real life (as you know, people do not change, unlike physics and similar sciences). Those. after reading a novel, you can recognize the personality type of the characters and communicate with him correctly, not succumb to his provocations. And you will communicate with people, because. Man is a bio-social being.

It can also be noted that the works help to cope with the difficulties of life. If everything in life is bad, then you can read a book and go into this world with your head or understand that your problems are worth nothing.

Well, the main thing for many. You can enjoy both the plot of the books and the style and style of the author. Unusual plot twists real heroes, help in real life, vocabulary enrichment - these are the goals of thin. literature that differs from the goals of popular science.

It's like talking to an interesting person. Especially when the author is already familiar. He reveals his thoughts to you, gives you information for reflection, and sometimes reveals the sad truth to you. Literature is still a very intimate thing, we read the thoughts of great and not so great people, and they are ready to tell us everything they know.