I'm not trying to be a smartarse or anything, this is a genuine question: what makes a book like that valuable to you? If it's very unpleasant to read, and capt

I'm not trying to be a smartarse or anything, this is a genuine question: what makes a book like that valuable to you? If it's very unpleasant to read, and captures an experience you are already familiar with, why are you glad that you read it? It seems to me that the value of unpleasant art is usually that it teaches us something: perhaps it helps us to empathise with people we previously didn't understand, or gives us a new perspective on a topic we care about, or makes us care about a topic we had previously neglected, etc. But if The Unconsoled precisely captured a feeling you were already familiar with, all I can see it doing is giving you a sense of connection: ah, yes, someone else really does get what my nightmares are like; I'm not alone. Which is not worthless, but seems likely to be outweighed by the unpleasantness of the reading experience. Am I just wrong on that last point, or have I missed something else entirely?