The Curious Case of the Novel: Why We Read Stories That Don't Exist

When we tell children that novels are magic carpets for the mind or lighthouses in the great sea of time, we're making grand claims for what is, fundamentally, a form of entertainment. Yet if I spend an afternoon reading a novel on a beach, I feel like I'm living my best life. If I spend that same afternoon scrolling through short videos on my phone, I feel like a gigantic loser. This discrepancy demands explanation.

The question becomes more puzzling when we consider how little we actually remember. I read Crime and Punishment years ago. With no research and no notes, here's what I recall: There was a guy, Ras-something, who was angsty and lived in a small apartment. He killed an old woman for no particular reason. A police inspector made long philosophical rants. I can't remember how it ended. This is probably below average retention, but even if you remember every detail, so what? Is remembering those details better than remembering whatever else you would have done with your time?

Theory 1: The Status Game

The most cynical explanation is that there's nothing intrinsically great about novels. We value them because they're high-status activities—ways of collecting cultural capital to lord over people with less time or education. The pleasure we feel isn't genuine enjoyment but a desperate striver's subconscious shape-shifting into whatever we think will make us look fancy.

There's something to this. The Glass Bead Game of cultural consumption is real, and we all participate in it. But this explanation feels incomplete, and frankly, I'm bored with everyone trying to explain everything through the lens of status competition.

Theory 2: The Diminishing Returns Problem

If you can't read novels—whether due to illiteracy, attention issues, or Candy Clicker addiction—cultivating that ability clearly benefits you. The first time you experience taking photons into your eyes and converting them into a story, it genuinely feeds your mind. This suggests reading novels has diminishing returns, which fits the pattern of parents pushing children to read while they themselves don't.

But do we really believe that after reading some number of novels, reading more becomes pointless? The theory explains parental behavior but doesn't account for why adults continue reading novels throughout their lives, often increasing their consumption rather than decreasing it.

Theory 3: Common Language

I think Catcher in the Rye is good but not great, yet I love discussing it because (1) all North Americans seem to have read it, and (2) asking someone how they feel about Holden Caulfield reveals something about them. When a group discusses The Three-Body Problem, Infinite Jest, or Don Quixote, everyone benefits from participation.

Cynics might call this zero-sum status competition, but in my social circles, people feel boorish discussing books if not everyone has read them. These conversations only happen with shared context. We're all alone, trying to connect by pushing air through our throat meat. With more shared cultural context, those sounds become more meaningful.

But shared context comes from other sources—travel, sports, hobbies. What makes books special? Two answers emerge: Nothing. If you think they're better, you're just a book person. Or books leave more room for interpretation. Don Quixote might be a fanatic, an idealist, or a "wise fool." It's debatable. There's no doubt who won the last World Cup.

I lean weakly toward the first answer. Novels are useful social context, but that's a side benefit, not the primary reason we read.

Theory 4: Legible Mind-Space

Novels might just be another form of entertainment, but different formats excel at different things. One advantage of novels is their natural exploration of characters' interior worlds. Movies sometimes use voice-overs where characters explain their thoughts, but this is generally considered cringe and a poor use of the medium. Meanwhile, many books are mostly about exploring what characters think.

Thoughts are worth exploring. If you want to explore them, maybe novels are the best way. This explains why I prefer the TV adaptation of My Brilliant Friend to the books—it makes heavy use of voice-overs to explore interiority, something the books do differently. Maybe other mediums have unrealized potential for exploring thought.

Theory 5: Purity of Vision

Movies are expensive to make and need to target large audiences. They reflect the combined efforts of many people, creating compromises between different visions. Novels are usually written by one person, often for personal expression rather than profit. Writing is hard, but would you rather spend an afternoon holding up a shotgun microphone or writing a novel?

Numbers suggest around 10,000 feature films release annually compared to approximately 1,000,000 novels. That's two orders of magnitude difference. If you want to hear a truly unique story—a pure vision from one person—novels are where you'll find it.

Theory 6: The Masterpiece Exception

Or maybe all these theories are stupid. The point of reading War and Peace is that it's incredible and obviously one of the greatest pieces of art ever made. No one who reads it can question the value of what they've done.

Fair. I definitely feel like I'm living my best life when I read War and Peace. But I also feel like I'm living an OK-ish life when I read a novel about Spenser, the private investigator. Most novels people read are closer to Spenser than to War and Peace, and I still feel better reading about Spenser than watching 99% of TV shows.

Theory 7: Dopamine and Attention Training

Perhaps the difference is that reading is something you do rather than something you consume. When you spend an hour watching short-form video, you're training yourself to pull a lever hoping for reward. When you read, paint, or meditate, you're training yourself to calmly pursue long-term goals and sustain attention in the face of complexity.

Phones and apps might be the most addictive things ever created. More people today are probably addicted to their phones than were ever addicted to any drug except caffeine or nicotine. While phone addiction is less physically harmful than tobacco, it might eat a larger part of your soul. This seems like a significant part of the explanation.

Theory 8: Non-Fungible Time

In the end, I don't think novels are the best way to spend your time. No novel—not even War and Peace—is as good as a truly great conversation. But great conversations are hard to create. Sometimes you're sitting on a train, lying in bed, or it's been a long day and you lack the energy to find a giant block of marble and pursue experimental sculpture.

In these situations, reading a novel might be the best thing you could realistically do. It's not about novels being optimal, but about them being optimal within the constraints of real life.

The Synthesis

Each theory captures part of the truth. Status matters, but isn't everything. Diminishing returns explain parental behavior but not lifelong readers. Shared context facilitates connection but isn't unique to novels. Mind-space exploration is a genuine advantage, though other mediums can adapt. Purity of vision explains the appeal of unique voices. Masterpieces justify the entire enterprise. Dopamine regulation addresses our modern attention crisis. Non-fungible time acknowledges practical constraints.

The answer isn't any single theory but their combination. Novels work because they're simultaneously social currency, attention training, mind-space exploration, and pure artistic vision. They're a technology for thought that happens to be low-tech enough to fit in your pocket and high-tech enough to simulate entire worlds.

We read novels not because they're the best use of time in some abstract sense, but because they're a uniquely flexible tool for navigating the human condition. They require active participation while providing structured escape. They connect us to others while keeping us alone with our thoughts. They're simultaneously entertainment and work, consumption and creation.

The magic carpet metaphor might be closer to truth than we admit. Novels don't transport us to other places so much as they give us a framework for understanding where we already are. The lighthouse isn't pointing toward some distant shore but illuminating the landscape of our own minds.

Exercise for the reader: Apply these theories to blog posts, comments on Lemmy or Substack. Which theories explain why you read what you read? Which fall short? The answer might reveal more about your own relationship with stories than about novels themselves.

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