Why Novels Are a Richer Experience Than Movies
Only novels can plumb the depth of human consciousness. The post Why Novels Are a Richer Experience Than Movies appeared first on Nautilus.
by Erik Hoel
Jul 31, 2023
3 minutes
ovels solve what philosophers call “the problem of other minds.” It’s the problem that we can never know for sure what a person is thinking, or, from a metaphysical perspective, if they even have a mind at all! We must infer, we must guess, we must speculate. Novels, however, take place in an imaginary world where the problem of other minds does not exist, where mental states, like rage or ennui, can be referred to, published in 1978, in which she emphasizes that this is “the singular power possessed by the novelist: creator of beings whose inner lives he can reveal at will.” Or as another scholar put it: “Novel reading is mind reading.”
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