straining against the
leash that keeps us tethered to reality. This is a wonderful
thing; it is what gives us out ability to conceive of
alternative futures and
different worlds. And it helps us to understand our own lives through the entertaining
stories of others. But it can lead us into trouble, particularly when we try to persuade others that our
inventions are real. Most of the time, as our stories bubble up to consciousness, we exercise our cerebral
censors, controlling which stories we tell, and to whom. Yet people lie for all sorts of reasons, including the
fact that confabulating can be dangerously fun.
E. During a now-famous libel case in 1996, Jonathan Aitken, a former cabinet
minister, recounted a tale to
illustrate the horrors he endured after a national
newspaper tainted his name. The case, which stretched on
for more than two
years, involved a series of claims made by the Guardian about Aitken's
relationships with
Saudi arms dealers, including meetings he allegedly held
with them on a trip to Paris while he was a
government minister. Whitt amazed
many in hindsight was the sheer superfluity of the lies Aitken told
during
his testimony. Aitken’s case collapsed in June 1997, when the defence finally
found indisputable
evidence about his Paris trip. Until then, Aitken's charm,
fluency and flair for theatrical displays of sincerity
looked as if they might bring
him victory, they revealed that not only was Aitken’s daughter not with him
that day (when he was indeed doorstepped), but also that the minister had simply got into his car and drove
off, with no vehicle in pursuit.
F . Of course, unlike Aitken, actors, playwrights and novelists are not literally attempting to deceive us,
because the rules are laid out in advance: come to the theatre, or open this book, and we'll lie to you. Perhaps
this is why we fell it necessary to invent art in the first place: as a safe space into which our lies can be
corralled, and channeled into something socially useful. Given the universal compulsion to tell stories, art is
the best way to refine and enjoy the particularly outlandish or insight till ones. But that is not the whole
story. The key way in which artistic “lies" differ from normal lies, and from the "honest lying” of chronic
confabulators, is that they have a meaning and resonance beyond their creator. The liar lies on behalf of
himself; the artist tell lies on behalf of everyone. If writers have a compulsion to narrate, they compel
themselves to find insights about the human condition. Mario Vargas Llosa has written that novels “express
a curious truth that can only he expressed in a furtive and veiled fashion, masquerading as what it is not.”
Art is a lie whose secret ingredient is truth.