Well-written novels make you more empathetic towards other people. You can identify with someone who isn't you. You can change your identity. A 14-year-old boy can become Anna Karenina. It is a miracle.
Interpretation
Well-written novels foster empathy by allowing readers to step into the shoes of different characters.
This quote by Olga Tokarczuk highlights the transformative power of literature, suggesting that through well-crafted storytelling, readers can experience life from perspectives vastly different from their own. By immersing oneself in another's reality, the reader not only gains a deeper understanding of that character but also develops a broader emotional intelligence and empathy for others, demonstrating the miraculous ability of fiction to transcend identity and foster connection.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of literature in a classroom setting.
But the fact is we did have colonies in the east of Poland, we did have a slave economy there. But this is not common knowledge - or part of our national myth. It goes against the current romanticised view of the government, and much of the country, that Poles have always been victims, never oppressors.
My books are not 'political.' I don't make political demands. They actually describe life. But when we look at human life, politics creeps in everywhere.
I think that first-person narration is very characteristic of contemporary optics, in which the individual performs the role of subjective center of the world.
The world is a fabric we weave daily on the great looms of information, discussions, films, books, gossip, little anecdotes.
I first read Sigmund Freud's 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' as a young girl, and it helped me to understand that there are thousands of possible ways to interpret our experience, that everything has a meaning, and that interpretation is the key to reality. This was the first step to becoming a writer.
How we think about the world and - perhaps even more importantly - how we narrate it have a massive significance, therefore, a thing that happens and is not told ceases to exist and perishes.
Each period of a civilisation creates an art that is specific in it and which we will never see reborn. To try and revive the principles of art of past centuries can lead only to the production of stillborn works.
The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.
Great art transcends its culture and touches on that which is eternal.
The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and to be at one with this goodness as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.
Great things do not just happen by impulse, _x000D_ but as a succession of small things linked together.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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