Fiction vs. Non-fiction

Watching Revolutionary Road today I am reminded of how little fiction I currently read. As I said in a previous post, the movie reminded me of the novel Something Happened by Joseph Heller. It has been at least ten years since I read it, but many scenes remain vivid to me, more vivid than the many history books that I have since read.

I know that in some ways I began to feel that reading fiction was not as informative -- it did not cover real events, and in some way felt frivolous. I don't feel that I have time to escape into a world that was created in the imagination of an author. And yet, those works of fiction are often able to get at greater truths than non-fiction accounts. Depictions of real events too often get sidetracked by the facts.