Story-telling, since its earliest beginnings, has drawn its power not simply from the intrinsic fascination of a skilful narrative but from the fact that human beings are compelled to make ''fictions'' if they are to explain and come to terms with the world they experience. This holds true, as Mr Wicker shows in the course of a profound and wide-ranging enquiry, for the complex and often sophisticated novels and anti-novels of our own day just as much as for such traditional forms as myth and fairy-tale. The world remains ''story-shaped''.