On fiction...

One of the books I'm reading at the moment is To the Hermitage by Malcolm Bradbury. This isn't a write-up of the book because I'm only a third of the way through reading it, and desperately trying to finish it because my friend leant it to me almost a month ago! Sadly I am also up to the eyeballs in assignments at the moment so that probably won't happen this weekend. You have no idea how desperately I am hanging out for my semester holiday in June.

Anyway, one of the characters in To the Hermitage is a writer (based, I think, on Bradbury himself) and has a lovely little spiel about why fiction is so much better than facts, which I thought I'd share, not least since it more or less reflects my own ideas on the subject!

"... fiction is infinitely preferable to real life, which is a pretty feeble fiction anyway. As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences, dull passages, worthless days, useless contingencies than the careless plot of reality written in Destiny's above. Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life. Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, moving, profound. There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfilments, twists, turns, gratified resolutions. Unlike reality or for that matter history, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed."

Amen.