1, #115 - Narrative resists compression.

Estimated Read Time: 42 seconds.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Unsplash

“Most of what we read is a summary. The news is summary, many online writers aim to summarize studies or other things they’ve read, the most popular nonfiction works tend to be summaries. In the case of history books, sometimes they are summaries of older summaries.

I worry we read too much summary. About news especially I think of Goethe: “If one has not read the newspapers for some months & then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.”

“It is an interesting feature of stories and fiction that they resist summary. You cannot read a summary of Anna Karenina and somehow stockpile its pleasures and charms. Narrative resists compression.”

I actually don’t think summary is such a bad thing. We need more good summaries—curation, synthesis, editing. But I do love the point that part of why we connect with stories is because they’re inefficient. We need both: minimalist, functional writing, as well as maximalist, expressive writing.

Here’s to short emails and long books!

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Insight inspired by

Simon Sarris

and his essay, Resist Summary. You should read the whole thing!