Why must fictional sickness mean more than itself?

Novels have long been using illness for metaphorical purposes, but few depict the ghastly facts of disease and dying straightforwardly

Regular readers of my somewhat sporadic blog posts will note that I do seem rather absorbed with suffering, despair and death. Today you'll be delighted to hear it's illness. Woody Allen created the line "I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens" - but writers put us in the room with sick people, with the dying, and want us to...