FireLance
Legend
I think the latter happens more often than we think. It's just that nobody notices when everyone is working off the same flawed model of reality.
Breaking Edition Stereotypes
That is not connected to the notion of "simulation", though. The notion of a unicorn is built from elements of reality, but a unicorn is not a simulation of anything.
Yes.
Well, that's up for grabs, isn't it. Which is part of the point. Is Pip's obsession with Miss Haversham a "simulation" of anything? If so, what? And is the conversion of the protagonist in The End of the Affair - a triumph of Catholic Existentialism - person-like behaviour?
Part of the aesthetic point of this sort of writing is to invite the reader to ponder these questions. The author is not putting forward a hypothesis about human nature (ie to borrow [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION]'s image upthread, the novel is not analogous to a wind tunnel).
In the sense that fictions reflect the concerns of their authors, yes. In the sense that fictions are simulations of human life, not so much.
If the fiction in my game resembles (for instance) Arthurian romance, what is it simulating? Arthurian romance is not a simulation of anything - it an expression of a certain idealised conception of the values of mediaeval life.
Li Shenron
Legend
I have never owned a single heavy metal t-shirt.
Ravellion
serves Gnome Master
Dickens is often referred to as a Realist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_realism
That's about as simulationist as it gets, literature wise. Basically, take poor people, put them in either normal or extraordinary circumstances, and see how the world chews them up.
Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
Great to hear from everyone; it's nice to be reminded once in a while that editions aren't monolithic cults. 
Which stereotype does this break?
That doesn't break the stereotype - it confirms it!
Dickens is a realist, yes. As, per your link, is Flaubert. But to think of their works as simulations of anything strikes me as absurd. Madame Bovary isn't a simulation of the life of the bourgeoisie - it's an attack upon it. Great Expectations isn't a simulation of what happens when the younger brother of a smith's wife receives an anonymous bequest - at least as it spoke to me when I read it, it's about the illusions that drive so much of modern social dynamics.
These authors aren't trying to model reality: they're making the points they want to make using story components adapted from reality.
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