Forgive the multiple posting today - I suppose that my time away from the blog has queued up a few posts!
I am re-reading A.S. Byatt's Possession today, and this passage jumped out to me.
"It is possible for a writer to make, or remake, at least, for a reader, the primary pleasures of eating, or drinking, or looking on, or sex. Novels have their obligatory tour-de-force, the green-flecked gold omelette aux fine herbes, melting into buttery formlessness and tasting of summer, or the creamy human haunch, firm and warm, curved back to reveal a hot hollow, a crisping hair or two, the glimpsed sex. They do not habitually elaborate on the equally intense pleasure of reading. There are obvious reasons for this, the most obvious being the regressive nature of the pleasure, a mise-en-abime even, where words draw attention to the power and delight of words, and so ad infinitum, thus making the imagination experience something papery and dry, narcissistic and yet disagreeably distanced, without the immediacy of sexual moisture or the scented garnet glow of good burgundy. And yet, natures such as Roland's are at their most alert and heady when reading is violently yet steadily alive."
"Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other."
P.S. Christchurch continues to stand strong and recover after last week's earthquake. For ways in which you can help, go here.
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