Let’s imagine for a second that infallibly brilliant detectives like Poirot and Miss Marple could never exist in real life. Wouldn’t it then be all the more important to invent them? To use fiction as a way of enlarging life—making it bigger, better, more interesting, and, crucially, more satisfactory? Of course there has to be a Her-cule Poirot! Isn’t it precisely the job of fiction to offer us what real life cannot, while at the same time enlightening us with regard to real life?
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