The art of fiction gardner6/4/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() The image of absorption works particularly well for a good story like a sponge taking in water, a good story absorbs the reader’s imagination quickly and gives it shape and color (and, if you have one in mind, a purpose), and can hold onto it quite a long time. I don’t like calling stories “immersive,” since dunking something isn’t particularly hard, and instead prefer older terms of praise like “involving,” “engaging,” and especially “absorbing” that suggest the work behind creating such a state. I’ll return to the other books that have given me this sensation, but Deliverance is the one that got me thinking more specifically and precisely about this feeling. And if you regularly read this blog, you might recognize that I’ve had this rare experience several times this year. Each time I finished a chapter I felt as though I were not simply setting a book aside but returning to the real world, like swimming up from a deep green pool in the Cahulawassee. When I read Deliverance, both twelve years ago and last week, I was absorbed. Rereading proved not only enjoyable but instructive. Not only is it a great and challenging story-both harrowing and rich, absolutely dripping with menace and meaning-Dickey wrote it brilliantly. ![]() After mentioning James Dickey’s Deliverance here last week, I decided it was finally time to reread it. ![]()
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