I have heard some strange views recently about reading not fostering empathy but only creating selfishness from different points of view. I find this such a sad objection. It’s as if, in a world dying of thirst, we are arguing about whether elderflower pressé is better than orange squash. In every walk of life, from the classrooms and playgrounds of our schools to the corridors of power at Westminster, the lack of empathy shines through. The ability of some to look on desperate, cold, terrified human beings arriving at our shores and see them as a threat, vilifying them as less than human (‘vermin’, ‘plague’, ‘invasion’) is one piece of evidence for our general lack of empathy. The cynical targeting of NHS staff and resources after relying on them so heavily, and thanking God for them so profusely, is another failure in empathy. But, on the small, human level, the child who excludes another from party invitations to pay them back for an insult, the young person who continually calls someone names in order to boost their status in their own group of friends, the teacher who gives up on the disruptive, angry child in their troublesome Year 10 class, or the senior manager who guilts their employees into taking on this new responsibility/staying late another evening, knowing they are already at the limits of their capacity – all these show lack of empathy. How different our world would be if each of us increased our levels of empathy!

Books have always answered the question, what does it feel like to be someone else? Through the minds of people all over the world – people long dead, from alien lifestyles and beliefs, people of different races, religions, gender nationality, class – we experience the world in a way we never could on our own.

Reading is a complex affair. Authors try and put themselves into others’ shoes to describe anything from a middle aged bank clerk in early twentieth century London (Mary Poppins) to a child alone in London in the mid nineteenth century living in abject poverty working in an exhausting, menial job (David Copperfield). In these two examples, the authors had either direct experience of what they were writing about, or something very close. P.L. Travers wrote Mary Poppins’ Mr Banks with her own father in mind. Charles Dickens’ own childhood working in a blacking factory, his own father in prison for debt, was the inspiration for the experiences of David Copperfield. I hope you agree with me that both of these, in very different ways and styles, feel authentic. They truly provide a window into worlds we otherwise would never know. The child reading about the stultifying effect of the grind of work on the heart and mind of a middle aged man, and the adult reading about a child’s sense of abandonment, shame and misery living in poverty, both see something which is outside of their personal experience. They, in caring for Mr Banks or David Copperfield, can then transfer that affection or understanding to the real lost man or lost child in their own lives. This is, of course, the key. Learning to transfer the love of the fictional character into the understanding of the real people around us. Empathy is like anything -once we learn it, it becomes easier and easier. We may even learn to accept, tolerate or even care for those around us who annoy us, irritate us or even injure us.

There are authors who are not so successful in putting themselves in others’ shoes, of course. Dickens is known for the shallowness of some of his female characters, for example. As a woman, I often read books where the women in them seem little more than the male author dressed up. It is rare, in my opinion, for an author to capture the feeling of living in a female body. Male authors often just transfer their own ‘normal’ into the life of a female character. That is putting aside the strange, mindless stereotypes that sometimes make it into published fiction. Once you read The Handmaid’s Tale and feel the main character’s sense of her own physical being, it is hard not to read other fictional women as only partial creations. No doubt many people experience this kind of lack when they read. The token black person in the friendship group, the cheeky working class lad made good, the jolly fat earthy friend who never gets the boy, these are the kinds of stereotypes which keep recurring. But even in well-drawn and in depth characterisation, no doubt people from different racial or religious backgrounds hear a jarring note, feel a lack of authenticity.

Even in these cases, though, I would argue that we are all still practising empathy. The author is trying, even if not totally successfully, to make real an idea or situation we probably haven’t experienced. We still gain something, if not everything possible. This is only if the author and the reader genuinely try to imagine the life of the other with sympathy and care. Obviously, the lazy stereotype, the cruel or thoughtless belittling of others, in fiction or in life, is the reverse of what fiction should aim to achieve.

It has been argued that when people write about perverted, cruel or criminal individuals, a sense of empathy gets between the reader and their ethical judgement. I still struggle with this idea. Understanding someone is not to acquit them. We don’t lose our sense of what is right and what is wrong because we understand why someone behaves as they do. Even in books when we are fully immersed in the evil mind of the author’s creation, the reader does not have to lose their critical faculty.

We judge everything. Always.

When reading, we judge how authentic the character is, how real the situation. We judge the character’s actions and reactions. We judge the language the author uses. We judge the arc of the plot and the ideas the writer is trying to convey. Not dismissively. Not unsympathetically. But with discernment and care.

Essentially, reading with empathy and for empathy is part of reading with judgement. The writer tries their best to place you in a new world. We take what we can of it to learn something about our own. It is a partnership between reader and writer. We can’t blame the writer if we don’t come away from our reading experience with a wider view and understanding of the world. We can’t blame the writer if we don’t learn to apply our love of Oliver Twist and the Dodger to the children living on the streets of twenty-first century London. Reading creates empathy. But we have our work to do as well. Can you imagine a world where we all tried to see things from others’ points of view? If reading can help us achieve that, it is well worth the effort, don’t you think?