Like many modern-day readers, I enjoy going along to my monthly book club and discussing a novel in detail. I find it truly enhances my life. But I’ve been wondering lately just what it is about discussing fictional stories that makes life seem a little bit shinier.

Besides the social aspect of book club – connecting with others who read and enjoy literary fiction –  something else happens when we pull back the layers of a story, peek into the complex lives of characters, and unravel the web of plot points and narrative arcs.

In his collection of essays, The Nearest Thing to Life, literary critic James Wood explores what it is that gives the novel its power to transcend cursory communication. Wood suggests its in the way fiction takes us up close to death – by imagining lives in their entirety – and in the noticing of the tiny details of life, that the shape and textures of life are revealed.

Just like we can see and feel the weave of a rug, fiction brings our awareness to the weave of the fabric of life.

A multi-generational saga allows us to see a life as both instances (the kindness of a stranger; choosing to step onto that departing train; overhearing a conversation) and as fully formed (from birth to death, generation to generation).

Viewing our own lives as a whole is something we rarely do – except on those few occasions that demand it (the death of a loved one; the writing of a will; the signing a mortgage). Most of us are unaware of our own life’s ending and how the filaments weave it together. Instead, we see our life as it plays out as a series of instances.

Reading a novel allows us to zoom in and zoom out on a life – to notice details, to be reminded of death as it evokes our own existential questions of ‘Why’. Wood believes this shift creates a tension that gives the novel its power.

When I read a novel, I see and feel the world differently. As the textures of life are explored in the story, I begin noticing the textures of my own life.

As I’m sitting in my book club, sipping my wine, it is in those textures – the bumpy, the smooth, the hard, the glossy – that life’s beauty, challenges, wonder and, perhaps, meaning are revealed.

And perhaps, like the believer who goes to church and feels transformed by talk of heaven and hell, my monthly book club is my secular transformational gathering. It’s the place I get to share the experience of seeing life as something more than a series of banal instances. Life is textured. Life is shiny.

For those of you in Brisbane (Australia) who would like to discuss the textural moments of life (and some great fiction!) every month, join us at our Lit Up Book Club. Details and RSVP are on our Lit Up Book Club Meetup page.

If you would like to discuss fiction and life’s texture in more detail and with a little bit more of a life-change/action focus then Let’s Talk Books – And Life!