Ummm...I've been giving this some thought for a couple of days and have arrived at the conclusion that I am not equipped in any way to answer that question. Every writer and professor of literature--indeed, every bum on the street--no doubt has a different opinion on the purpose of literature.

But I might say that literature has a plot, and life doesn't. Or that literature seeks to express the otherwise inexpressible parts of life. Or that--etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum.

So I recuse myself.

Also, in literature there is metaphor and foreshadowing and stuff. But I run about trying to find parallels where there are none...

I guess my take on it is that when you read literature, you have the sense all the time that every event being described has significance and leads up to this big-fucking-epiphany at the end of it all. Life... well, things never feel like they're adding up. There are "EUREKA!" moments, and then the next second you feel as though you had all the answers for that one moment, and now you've lost them all again. So you're back to nothing. Maybe if we could summarize life, and fast-foward to the end, life would mirror literature more.

By the way, I'm cracking up about your music choice: "I'm a dick, I'm a dick, I'm addicted to you." When I first heard that song I thought, "Damn, Simple Plan really didn't plan out their lyrics too terribly well."

"Damn, Simple Plan really didn't plan out their lyrics too terribly well."

SERIOUSLY. I can hardly believe that they didn't do that on purpose but I can hardly fathom why they would have.