The moment the reader falls into Hallucination, that ignominy of Art, I have lost rather than gained a reader. What I want is something very different, which is to win him over as a character, so that for an instant he believes that he himself does not live. This is the emotion for which he should thank me, since until now no one has thought of procuring it for him.
But what is the book? The City of Dreadful Night? William Skidelsky doesn't like biopics or bio-pics, although I'm not entirely sure why. Is "fictionalizing" history that abhorrent? If so, is it more or less abhorrent than "fictionalizing" the present? Mankind has always harbored a great number of fools and morons, and current trends in revisionist history-as-entertainment are unlikely to have any noticeable effect on this particular trait of our species.
An option: read good novels and enjoy them. Think about how they affect your day. Maybe even decide to view each coming day through the lens of a beloved book. Today is The Trial and tomorrow is Grendel.
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