Reading fiction improves empathy

An article in today's Guardian newspaper reports research claiming to prove that reading a novel improves empathy.  Go to Guardian article   How does this differ from watching a film?    We are outside the goldfish bowl looking in when we watch a film.   When we read a novel we are or become the  person in the novel which maybe explains why intellectual men often cite L'étranger  (http://www.letranger.co.uk/) as the novel that influenced them most (or the stranger/outsider) and women quote Jane Eyre. 

In Kiffe Kiffe Demain (http://www.kiffekiffedemain.co.uk/ ) we join Doria in going from darkness to light in a Bildungsroman with a difference.   We share her cynicism for life in France before gradually coming to realize that actually it is doing its best to make life better for people.

In Bonjour Tristesse (http://www.bonjourtristesse.co.uk/)  we initially side with the narrator but gradually begin to recoil in horror from what she is doing to the people around her, with the dénouement leaving a nasty taste in our mouths.

In un sac de billes (http://www.unsacdebilles.co.uk/) we are the grown up parent looking back to our childhood and going back over the dangers and excitement of the second world war quickly losing our innocence.    Narrating from the perspective of many years distance with an adults wisdom demonstrates a different kind of empathy.   We are empathizing with the adult empathizing with the child he once was.  

Which ever book if it is good we immerse ourselves in the character and hence in the culture, looking outwards from the goldfish bowl.   However good a film maker is achieving empathy is never easy although Truffaut and some others have had a jolly good try.

Literary tours via Streetview

Reading is essentially a journey inside the head of the narrator, primarily.   This is where, to my mind, a novel scores over the film.   However where curiosity is aroused about the novel after a while you start to wonder what that patchily described environment is like particuarly in the case of a foreign book where you may not have visited the country.   So for instance in the case of Kiffe Kiffe demain (see resources under www.kiffekiffedemain.co.uk ) you can easily visit Livry-Gargan the town in which the novel takes place.   Just go to www.google.co.uk/maps and type in the town name.  Pull the little orange man on the zoom tool onto a blue lined street to go into Streetview mode.

Similarly for Un sac de billes (www.unsacdebilles.co.uk ) you can visit the bridge in Aire sur Adour or the various places in Nice or Menton ... an excellent way of going from the internal to external exploration.