Who Do They Think They Are?

Writers are those naïfs among us who believe that language can be used to take the measure of experience. Readers demonstrate faith in them when they commit to a book or short story. The reader-writer relationship is a contract of sorts. But because the terms are not written down, there is much room in that contract for misinterpretation. What is at stake is not small: it is a shared picture of reality. Nor is it static. With each new publication or rereading, the reader-writer contract is up for review. What could go wrong?

In every closely examined work of creativity, no matter how successful, there is a frightening degree of illusion. Once, in an art gallery, I was taken with a work of Flemish realism depicting a man who wore the most dazzling lace collar. I moved closer and closer, until I could see that the fine textile was simply a series of crude white dots joined together by off-white and grey dashes. I walked backwards, away from the painting, while keeping...