I sat comfortably on a couch in the living room of my apartment, reading through the early portions of “Njal’s Saga,” a thirteenth century Icelandic classic. It is an exercise in the illumination of family feuds, honor, luck, greed, fate and a heaping mound of violence stripped of undeniable motive.

The relation of marriage custom, genealogies and religious values prior to the wholesale adoption of Christianity in Iceland, lends some degree of historical authenticity and perspective to the story, though the saga itself does not claim to be based on historical events. It is, as the translator explains in the book’s introduction, intended for entertainment.

While perusing through the early pages, I thought of modern day trappings in the entertainment industry, and how the word entertainment has manifested itself into a living, breathing member of society, overt in its claim to encompass all things real. Thus the crux. If reality can be entertaining, then where is the line drawn between actual and manufactured reality?

Hundreds of reality television shows permeate prime time airwaves across America. Fans are fascinated by a grand display of raw emotion. Reality shows pimp the concepts of competition, love, love lost, pain and betrayal relentlessly, and with a strong notion of narrative.

Shows like “Survivor” present ready-made heroes, a beacon to the ordinary that screams of undiscovered potential. Despite drastic obstacles of deceit, hunger and environmental dangers, the show’s participants leap to victory and into the collective arms of their audience.

But, supposed reality is really just a canned version, it’s shelf life as temporary as the audience’s maintained interest. It gives those of us glued to the television a means of hoping for something grander, more heroic in our otherwise normal existence. Success is no longer measured in small, meaningful events of charity among neighbor, kin, friends and co-workers. Success is not raising our children to understand the importance of friendship, self-respect and individuality, or taking pride in the work you do, whether it be bagging groceries or saving lives. It is measured in the achievement of monetary status, that somehow winning a prize while stepping all over your competitors is the culmination of human achievement. Or worse, reality is nothing but a chair-throwing ordeal wrought with broken familial relationships.

Our fascination as an audience is cemented by convenience. Love and success, especially in the aforementioned “Survivor,” and also evident in shows like “The Bachelor” and “For Love or Money,” are all part of the entertainment value. It numbs our better judgement of what these things truly mean to us, becoming less “real” and far more conceptual.

Much like the story of Njal serves as an overt distinction between good and evil, manufactured reality makes a mockery of our understanding of what it is to be a good human being. It assumes that our gluttony for witnessing people’s faults on the old boob tube heightens a desire to glue our butts to the couch and consume a heaping pile of popcorn. We laugh, cry and cheer at the expense of people’s suffering.

Is it societal conditioning, or is the front page of the daily paper not enough reality for us. I would laugh, cry and curse in frustration, but it wouldn’t be real of me to do so, not while the camera crew and team of writers are busy elsewhere.