I love the opening of Chapter 1...
Quote:
|
In beginning a chapter late in Mere Christianity Lewis wrote, “It is a very silly idea that in reading a book you must never ‘skip.’ All sensible people skip freely when they come to a chapter which they find is going to be no use to them. In this chapter I am going to talk about something which may be helpful to some readers, but which may seem to others merely an unnecessary complication. If you are one of the second sort of readers, then I advise you not to bother about this chapter at all but to turn to the next” (p. 145). Readers should approach the first chapter of this book, too, with that attitude. This chapter shows how an understanding of and attention to the form, archetypes, narrative category, and conventions of a work can make one a more skillful reader, able to respond more fully to a work of fiction. Readers who find this chapter uninteresting or bewildering should go on to the next one, and, perhaps, return to it after reading the chapters which follow.
|
Ah, the Pythonesque comedic possibilities abound...
