Why do people read novels?

Transcript:

We read novels because we want to live, even vicariously, in a world with meaning.

Too many senseless events happen in the real world: children die of starvation at the very gates of the wealthy, innocent and admirable people perish in natural disasters, wars that destroy young lives and entire countries are waged for the pettiest of reasons.

A novelist, whether realistic or fantastic, extrapolates meaning onto his or her envisioned world. Sometimes the good guy wins. The sick child recovers. The impoverished orphan has a secret fortune.

Even when the ultimate theme is meaninglessness and futility, the novelist reveals the inherent strength in a character, the machinations of history in everyday affairs, the possibility that society is capable of change.

Thomas Hardy's overriding theme is that the universe is malevolent or at best indifferent to the affairs of man. Yet his characters navigate a world of symbols: the unchanging, unyielding heath; the rick fires that challenge Gabriel Oak to exhaustion; the closed doors of the Yeobrights and Christminster.

A character's life *means* something. Ultimately that's what a reader wants to extrapolate back onto him/herself.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-read-novels/answer/Ann-Litz