The Real Reason Men Should Read Fiction

The Atlantic

6 days ago

There's always something going on with men. They can't make friends; they're very lonely; they're 'losing' to women; they listen to Andrew Tate. And, we are told, they do not read. Over the past few years, multiple articles have observed the so-called decline of the male reader, whose tastes once made best sellers of swaggering authors including Philip Roth, John Updike, and David Foster Wallace, and whose disappearance from the contemporary literary scene is troubling. 'If you care about the health of our society—especially in the age of Donald Trump and the distorted conceptions of masculinity he helps to foster—the decline and fall of literary men should worry you,' David J. Morris wrote in The New York Times.
The argument that society's problems can be traced to the fading prominence of Infinite Jest on dorm-room bookcases feels like a stretch; so does the underlying evidence. The source of such laments seems to be a widely circulated (but poorly sourced) factoid showing that men account for only 20 percent of the North American fiction market—an alarming number that invites all sorts of unchecked speculation. (For example: Does this mean that men who do read mostly stick to nonfiction—history books, self-help guides, manuals on improving one's business? Is the modern male reader statistically likely to be a walking LinkedIn post?)
The 80/20 split is probably overblown, as Vox 's Constance O'Grady found in a recent investigation of the oft-cited statistic. But there is some proof that women consume fiction at a higher rate than men. (O'Grady cites a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts survey finding that 50 percent of American women had read a novel or short story in the past year, compared with 33 percent of men—still a divide, though not as extreme.) All sorts of explanations for this have been floated: Publishing is overwhelmingly staffed by women, who might be more likely to acquire and market books that appeal to women; the attention economy has drawn men to other forms of entertainment, such as podcasts and video games; nobody reads much right now—the median American consumes just five books a year—and men are just canaries in this coal mine.
The last point, in particular, prompts fiction defenders to explain why this is a bad thing. Arguments about why one should read tend to emphasize some positive outcome, as though a book is a public good and you are its beneficiary. 'Reading fiction is also an excellent way to improve one's emotional I.Q.,' Morris noted in his Times op-ed, implying that reading will change men for the better. Perhaps they could appear more sexually desirable to certain prospective romantic partners (according to the filmmaker John Waters), or consider spiritual mysteries that can't be neatly captured by numbers and facts alone, or strengthen their empathy muscles and become less polarized citizens.
But as someone who belongs strongly in that fifth (or perhaps much more) of the male population that reads fiction, I can say that I'm usually not thinking about what I stand to learn. Rather, I'm aware of what is happening to me right now —and that affirmative thrill is the reason I can't seem to stop accumulating new books to read, even though I could use the space in my apartment for something else.
The concept of reading as an empathy machine—to borrow a phrase that originated with the late movie critic Roger Ebert —is appealingly idealistic. Stories that burrow into characters' trains of thought can capture true interiority in a way that film or nonfiction cannot. For a similar reason, personal essays are more likely to go viral than an academic paper about the same subject, because reality is more engaging as a described experience than as a series of logically arranged details. When I read Elena Ferrante 's My Brilliant Friend, I tunnel through space and time into 1950s working-class Naples. When I read Don DeLillo 's Libra, I can feel the particulars of Lee Harvey Oswald's life. I believe this makes me more empathetic, and I enjoy believing that it does; it's flattering to think I am becoming a better person by reading a book, even if it's obviously not always true (I know some veteran readers who are truly awful people).
But empathy is a bit too touchy-feely as a consistent motivation—at least for me. Sometimes I'm in a standoffish mood and don't particularly want to feel; men don't have a monopoly on misanthropy, but I'd argue that we're the more churlish gender—and the one more expected, and therefore allowed, to shake a stick and bark 'Stay away from me.' So many books (thrillers about burly ex-military cops, literary novels with creepy narrators) are more interesting precisely because their protagonists are nearly impossible to identify with. For example, the Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor's novel Paradais is partly about a teenage gardener in a gated community who befriends an off-putting loner with a monstrous plan to sexually assault his wealthy neighbor—gripping characters, but not exactly sympathetic ones.
Instead, it's how Melchor tells her story—in a dense, logorrheic style that piles on sensory details and intrusive thoughts—that makes Paradais so effective. In one representative passage, Polo, the gardener, attempts to blend in at a children's birthday party as his attention wanders from the women in attendance ('their hair straight and inert, as neat and lifeless as wigs') to their bland husbands ('just as ridiculous in their pink polos and pastel shirts') and unruly offspring (who 'screeched and launched themselves at the juddering bouncy castle like raving lunatics'). As Polo thinks and thinks and thinks, Melchor refuses to separate his observations with periods; the misanthropic remarks accumulate at the speed of thought, communicating the depth of his distaste with dizzying urgency. The intensity of this style feels more compelling than it would if Melchor had written, 'He looked around and realized he hated these rich people.'
I do not need to feel the exact feelings of a doltish, unfulfilled Mexican teenager who will eventually play a role in a heinous crime. But I can recognize the singularity of his experience, and the specific way in which Melchor renders this experience. I am not attempting to understand Polo, but I am following along at the pace of his perception, and my awareness of how Melchor has manipulated reality into something feverish and all-consuming makes me think of moments when I've also experienced events at the same pitch. This is not empathy, per se, but an escape from my own consciousness and surroundings—something I need, from time to time.
Conversations by men about men are self-selecting by nature; surely millions of men live their life every day without caring about what other people are saying about them. But a real demographic of men is besieged, every day, by a corner of the media universe—the so-called manosphere—that dictates where they should be spending their attention. You have possibly encountered a video of one of these manosphere men, sitting in front of a microphone, stridently theorizing about how a dude should be. Men should strive to stand out, they often say. They should broadcast their opinions, judge other people, stand up for their gender—as though investing a single man with enough authority could fix everything.
Many of these outspoken personalities advocate for men to throw off society's flattening influence, but they tend to make starkly similar points in starkly similar ways. Beyond the intellectual reservations they raise, I find them deeply boring. Contrary to their rebellious posturing, there is nothing more conformist than adhering to a stranger's standards of how you should behave.
Literature, meanwhile, allows me to occupy a place that is totally for myself, and unaccountable to other people's expectations. The author Percival Everett is fond of noting that he considers reading to be a subversive act. 'No one can control what minds do when reading; it is entirely private,' he once said. This, to me, is the best argument for why a man should read, and why he should seek new mental frontiers beyond the accumulation of information. Reality is linear, but reading skips backwards and forward, allowing me to consider the world from a removed vantage point. Instead of feeling squeezed by my earthly existence and my own bodily limits, I leap into other minds and perspectives—not just those of men, but also those of women and nonhumans—and consider those expectations. I am reminded that everyone is unexceptional and everyone is exceptional. Facts can sometimes tell us this about humanity, but fiction does this best of all.
It is seductive, too, to keep things to yourself. To incubate your own thoughts and ideas without having to express and justify them in real time as you might when talking with other people. Too much isolation can lead someone askew—ask the Unabomber—but this kind of solitary contemplation offers a retreat from social pressures. I have often felt powerless, or lonely; these are, in the end, just conditions of being alive. (They are certainly not gendered or tied to any particular demographic trend.) But fiction can remind you that you exist along a continuum of human experiences, and that your own everyday ennui is less of a dead end and more of a data point. Yes, men could use more empathy; they would also benefit from a heightened sense of perspective.
Too often, 'man time' is described as putting on a football game or picking up a fishing rod—retreating into some kind of brainless entertainment that is occasionally punctuated by moments of joy. Freedom can certainly be found in the physical world; Everett is also an avid fisherman. But if you can't go outside at the moment, or if you can't stand staring at another screen? Well, pick up a novel. It may shock you, the worlds you end up exploring—and the feelings you will stir up from nothing at all. You will find it easier to walk through life, ready for what comes next.