Basically what the title says: Is there any fiction book you’ve ever read that has emotionally or intellectually connected with you so much it changed the way you viewed the world, changed the way you viewed yourself or changed the way you viewed life (your own or in general)?

If so…

  • What book was it?
  • Why did it connect so well with you?
  • How did it make you feel?
  • And how did it change you?

Just to emphasize, I’m solely asking about works of fiction here. So nothing like reading just an academic book on philosophy or a self-help book or something.

  • 4354574@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Lord of the Rings. Probably the biggest reason for this is *when* I encountered it. LOTR is tailor-made for the mind of a young adolescent. When everything is changing in your life and your worldview is expanding, encountering this text is often enormously influential.

    I was 12 years old and a very scientifically-minded kid, but I was becoming disillusioned with the materialist paradigm of science. Encountering this world of myth and magic ‘re-enchanted’ the world for me and made me realize that I wasn’t the only person who felt like this.

    And all the powerful themes in the book of course left a deep impression on me - death and immortality, power, corruption, friendship, hope, endurance, love, compassion, the nature of good and evil etc.

    • ThatcherSimp1982@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I wonder sometimes about the impact that books make as a function of age. I read LotR in my 20s, and while I recognize Tolkien’s qualities as a scholar and as a storyteller (I adore his archaic usages of certain words–one that stands out is right after the Council of Elrond, when the Fellowship is assembled and listed off, and the book says something like, “so ends the Tale of the fellowship,”, and I was confused until I thought about it, and realized he meant “tale” as in “count” or “tally.” The book has such a flavor in its writing that I have encountered very rarely elsewhere), I can’t say it’s life-changing for me the way it is for others. Aragorn, Frodo, etc. are fine heroes, the philosophical discussions are elegant, the style is unique, but for some reason it never clicked for me the way it does for others. Maybe it’s because I had passed the age where a book can make that kind of impact on me–there are others I read around 12 that shaped my personality profoundly.