The reader and the author
Posted by Jane Elizabeth on November 15, 1997 at 14:42:24:
In response to The joy of reading, written by Kate on November 14, 1997 at 20:17:04
It's such an extraordinary thing, the relationship between the author and the reader. The author sits, alone in a room, and writes...for whom? For herself? For the reader? For both, most likely. The book may become a bestseller, may languish on a dusty shelf, may continue to be read for centuries, and yet it each time it is read it connects one mind directly with another, across time and space. That's true immortality: to grant the experience so well described by Byatt to anyone who chooses to pick up your words and read them. It's both enormously egotistical and unselfish at the same time.
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