no more leaves, I promise

I read Zoe Williams article in the Sat Guardian about the point, or otherwise, of fiction in these dark times. Well excuse me, but I think fiction is absolutely apposite when times are dark. And no, it's not to escape, it's to underline that beyond all this confusion and uncertainty there is one certainty; that art matters. I remember going to a play at the National a couple of days after the July bombings in the London Underground. We were all a little nervous I think, at being in a large crowd in London that night, until the performance started and then it was just so committed, so much a statement that art is about another dimension that transcends whatever we might try to do to destroy the humanity in each other, that it felt like a glorious evening. So of course, novels, poems, plays, pictures all matter more than ever - and I don't think they need necessarily to make statements or reflect on the state of the world. I want my life to be about more than what's happening at this moment.