Umberto Eco explains novels and death...

His argument in "Functions of Literature" runs something like this. A common assumption is that facts about the world are unchanging but interpretations of fiction are up in the air, are malleable. But the opposite is true, Eco claims.

Facts about the world, you see, can be revised in the face of additional evidence - ideas about the earth's position in the universe is an example of this revision. At one time the earth was thought to be the center of the universe, now we know it isn't.

Works of fiction, on the other hand, are fixed in time forever. No additional evidence can overturn a novel's facts. Captain Ahab either gets the white whale in "Moby-Dick" or he doesn't (he doesn't). Oedipus either marries his mother or he doesn't (he does). And this won't change in a year or 10 or 1,000.

via booklsut