At first, it seems like a commonplace observation: stories, whether oral or written, do not exist independently, but only in relation to a teller and an audience. To tell a story, whether that means speaking it or writing it, is to realize, to bring into existence, something that has up to that point only been a kind of potential or possibility. Likewise, to listen responsively to a story is to participate in the process of the story’s creation, bringing the story into being by an act of imaginative possession so that you can say, “This is
Bravo … I wonder if all great novels possess a secondary level of meditation on their own creation in the text and in their recreation in the reader’s imagination—on, that is to say, the story’s incarnation and resurrection? I can’t think of a great novel I’ve read that does not.
Bravo … I wonder if all great novels possess a secondary level of meditation on their own creation in the text and in their recreation in the reader’s imagination—on, that is to say, the story’s incarnation and resurrection? I can’t think of a great novel I’ve read that does not.