My English 320 professor just explained myself to me. English majors (that's me) live through mediated experiences. They compare situations that occur in real life to either other real life experiences or experiences found and read about in books. These books allow you to see life from another perspective. We live vicariously through them. They take us to another world that we could not necessarily otherwise experience. They allow us to escape from our lives. Books provide difference - radical "otherness."
"Literature can be thought of as the user's manual for human beings." - Anonymous
Some read for identity, to get another perspective on a similar circumstance. Because literary texts are typically narratives, they do not only approach being something, they also evaluate what it means to do being that something. Life imitates art which is an imitation of life. Society is constituted by what we collectively know. Movies are passive. Books are active.
"Readers are a community of the damned." - Craig Howes
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