Fiction

 When I was teaching young children we would sometimes use the terms 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' when talking, mainly to other teachers, about what they might like or might try. I'm not sure we directly used those terms with the children, but it's quite a big distinction, and one we sometimes don't think about. 

Is it the difference between 'true' for non-fiction and 'not true' for fiction? Are we saying that fiction is all a lie? I'd like to think a bit about what fiction is. And I heard somewhere that one of the reactions in 18th and 19th century England to this obsession with the new 'novels' that people were reading was that none of it was 'true'. They were all just made-up and untrue and at some level, "lies". And if you believed in the literal truth of the 'Good Book' of your Christian religion, how could you approve of such an interest in untruths? 

Also, one joke we had at a particular academic publisher I worked for was "Here's the updated 5-year plan. It's the only fiction that we publish"

So how do you feel about the idea of reading something that is just made-up? Such as Romeo and Juliet or The Highwayman or Nicholas Nickelby? Does it spoil your enjoyment that none of it is true? And when you see Romeo and Juliet kill themselves at the end, are you bothered when they jump up for the curtain call?

 I suspect not, and nor am I. The key element is the 'willing suspension of disbelief' I suppose. Just because you almost never are in 'fair Verona where we lay our scene..' and you know that Nicholas is not a real person, it does not stop your enjoyment or the satisfaction at the end. Non-fiction tells us something true about the real world. But so does fiction, just not in the same way. And maybe the fact that you know that nobody really died can add to the cathartic effect on your emotions, mind and heart.

Cro was a huge repeat-reader but still said that every time she got to the misplaced letter scene in Tess of the D'Urbervilles she would think and almost call out: 'It's under the mat! Look under the mat! So her belief could be suspended repeatedly with no loss.

There is one rather large Elephant in the Room or perhaps Sausage in the Fruit Salad (just because I like the phrase): AI, and all that it can 'create'

So now we have the possibility of fake fiction, where no human fabricated the untruths, but a computer programme made them from billions of fragments of real fiction which we had "stored against our wreckage". How depressing that we can have a story that was not even lied to us by a human.

Maybe in this 'post-truth' world there is only fiction. 

Homer will be spinning in his grave. And that's him at the top of the page, as you may be wondering.