Ender's Game

[bbkkyy55]

I just finished reading "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card.  Thank 
you so much for recommending it.  Wow!  I won't say anything so I 
don't spoil it, other than to state the obvious children hero 
similarities.  I would advise that if anyone starts the book that you 
stay for the finish.

The author made a statement in the introduction that rang so true for 
me I almost had to cheer.  He says:


"Why else do we read fiction, anyway?  Not to be impressed by 
somebody's dazzling language - or at least I hope that's not our 
reason.  I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we 
know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth:  
The mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth 
about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the 
most specific truth of all:  our own self-story.  Fiction, because it 
is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always 
has the possibility of being about ourself."      -   Orson Scott Card


So many people I know refuse to read fiction.  They act like it's so 
beneath them.  So childish.  Especially books like "Harry Potter" 
or "Ender's Game".  I've always thought that fiction can talk about 
subjects that no other art form or media can deal with.  Feelings and 
motives, why people do the things they do, how they think.

I also think every book is a little different to each person.  Orson 
Scott Card goes on later in the introduction to say:


"The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience 
members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then 
transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own 
experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears."


That must be why movies seldom are as good as the books.  I find I 
have to go to a movie, such as the Harry Potter movies, several times 
before I can accept the directors/producers/script writers version of 
things.

I feel soooo sorry for people who don't read fiction.  They have no 
idea what they are missing.

Bonnie