Then why read fiction at all? It's all a diversion. - Edit 1
Before modification by Werthead at 05/12/2009 04:18:36 PM
Also, I know you really, really like A Song of Ice and Fire and I'm not looking to open old disagreements, but I don't really see any deep messages or themes there. I think your predisposition to the series has elevated it a bit in your eyes. Yes, it talks about power. Yes, it's got a lot of intrigue. It's a lot like the HBO series "Rome" in that respect, and I think that's part of what drew HBO to it. I would still classify it as primarily a "diversion", however. A very good diversion (leagues better than Dan Brown's books or Terry Brooks or Goodkind), but still primarily a diversion.
Of course, and the political commentary in ASoIaF is not particularly prevalent (although it is deliberate; GRRM's earlier short fiction is more notably political, as is FEVRE DREAM, if a bit more obvious in its pre-Civil War setting). The message or theme is not as developed or central as in many other works.
But then all fiction is a diversion, regardless of what valid points it might raise. WAR AND PEACE and CATCH-22 say interesting things about war and people caught in it. But neither are even remotely as effective as Harrison E. Salisbury's non-fiction THE NINE HUNDRED DAYS or Beevor's BERLIN: THE DOWNFALL. No murder mystery can be as discomforting or effective as IN COLD BLOOD. No fictional culture clash Southern drama is as powerful as I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.
If we should primarily be reading for some kind of intellectual stimulation, then why not go the whole hog and insist we read non-fiction instead (or at least as well)?