Masters of narrative have the power to expose the...

Sunday, 23 October, 2011

Masters of narrative have the power to expose the act of fabrication without invalidating the work: sublime puppeteers like Austen or Nabokov smiling at the audience above their creations, addressing the reader or discussing what they know or need to suppose about the puppets and their stage. Sometimes it’s done with backspin, as when Dante says he hesitated to say he saw a body walking along holding its severed head — but what can he do, he really saw it? Such gestures of acknowledgment that the story is a made thing, far from diminishing our commitment to a tale, somehow increase it. We crave more of the story, and we crave it all the more because a glimpse of the sorcerer’s workshop confirms that we are in the hands of a master. Narrative — all art — is mysterious, and the storyteller’s confidence crowns the mystery. — Robert Pinsky, reviewing Cain, Jose Saramago’s final novel, in the NY Times. (via thebronzemedal)