FICTION FOCUS
Why tell a story?
Margaret James asks what the uses of fiction are, and comes up with some of the main reasons people need and want to read stories
Margaret James
M
ost human beings find the behaviour of other people fascinating.
Maybe this is because real life is eternally unpredictable? Also because there seems to be no limit to how depraved or benevolent, or stupid or smart, our fellow creatures can be?
So, since what goes on in real life always gives us plenty to think about, why would anyone in their right mind bother to read fiction? Let alone write it?
What can fiction do that autobiographies and biographies, all those thousands of dramatised documentaries about the wicked, the clever, the rich, the famous and the unfortunate, all those biopics on Netflix and in our local Odeons, and all those lifestyle television programmes about house-hunting, cake-making and rubbish-salvaging that fill our screens on a daily basis, cannot?