The Sense of an Ending

"I’m interested in The Sense of an Ending for some of the same reasons that McEwan was. In the book, Kermode talks about myths and fictions – how they differ from one another, and how they play a role not only in literature but also in politics and history. He takes the view of the great 20th century poet Wallace Stevens that we find ourselves having to live on the basis of what we recognise to be fictions, and that fictions create meaning in human life that wasn’t there before. Kermode argues that fictions are, in a way, hardly necessary. That much of our life consists of living in the context of fictions which have a tight hold on the lives they give meaning to. Kermode says that myths and fictions have reached the state where their human authorship has been forgotten. I disagree, and like to turn this around by saying that fictions are decaying or fading myths. People who join a religion like Christianity or Islam feel that if they follow this path their life will become meaningful. But there’s a hint of doubt all along that this might be fiction. And not all myths are benign – some are poisonous and malign, like the myths of racism, whereas other myths may not be inherently bad but simply shallow and dangerous. I think it is a very human impulse. It is hard for us to accept the degree of randomness there is in the world and in our lives, especially when that randomness operates destructively on us. I forget who said that paranoia is a protest against unimportance. It may have been me. A paranoid delusion can be of defensive benefit to the person who has it, because it gives them the sense of being at the centre of the world, whereas the reality is practically always that nobody cares about them at all and they are of no significance. The delusion of there being order in the chaos of experience can also lead to great human achievements, in science for instance, or in literature where the chaos of history and experience is shaped and moulded into meaningful and significant forms. So it is a benign impulse to that extent. But it can also be tremendously dangerous, because it leads to the phenomena of scapegoating and targeting which emerge in periods of toxic politics. If you are in the midst of a crisis such as in Europe – where states are going bankrupt, your job is not secure, your mortgage is unpayable and bank interest is declining – there is a tremendous danger under those circumstances to find a pattern of events that explains these changes in reference to groups that supposedly brought them about or benefited from them. This kind of paranoid politics is rooted partly in economic crisis and social dislocation, but also in the need to survive periods of extreme insecurity by finding meaning. Often that meaning is benign, but it can also partake of the destructive and deadly impulses of which Freud wrote and be powerfully shaped by hatred, enmity, destruction, cruelty and the desire to bring suffering to groups of people in society around you. So a discussion of myth and fiction sounds obscure, but is actually very important. What Kermode wants is that the fictive state of our interpretation of reality can be fully recognised, but I don’t think that will ever be possible."