The Single Most Important Lesson from Literary Fiction in My Life (that We All Need Especially Now)

When I was growing up, my mom made me read a lot. She had a degree in Russian language and literature but worked in a kindergarten and eventually became a stay-at-home mom when my dad started earning more. This was in the 1980s in Soviet Moscow. Naturally, given her education and interests, she invested a lot of time in my upbringing and education (which, frankly, was often a pain in the ass — as a kid, I didn’t sign up for all that reading).

Before I was old enough for classic literature, I went through a lot of adventure books — by Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas, for example. Dumas has a novel, La Reine Margot. It’s not as famous as The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo, but there’s a scene in that book that left a lasting impression on me. Because the books were fairly long, my mom would read parts of them, and once I was interested, I’d pick them up.

I distinctly remember one particular scene from La Reine Margot. My Mom was reading it to me.

In the story, two characters, La Môle and Coconnas, are friends who are captured and face torture. La Môle endures brutal torture (his bones are crushed) because of his involvement in court intrigues, while Coconnas, guilty of the same, is spared. I don’t recall all the nuances, but Coconnas had previously shown kindness to the executioner by shaking his hand — not out of fear, but out of empathy, seeing him as human. Because of this, the…