I have a friend who does not believe in gravity. Or as he calls it “gravitational theory”.
My friend believes what feels like gravity is accounted for by a web of strings attaching everything in the universe, the Sun is connected to the Earth is connected to the Moon and us and so on.
This is similar to what I see with literature. When I come across a character or theme in a book, when I find a layer that nods obviously to something I’ve read before. A small silver needle pierces the page and threads it along a delicate, nearly invisible, silver cord. I imagine an enormous web of books strung along by their pages. The web extends centuries back, some books have only one piercing and weigh heavily on a single string, some have so many they are suspended on thousands of taught threads. The strings and books are thickly interwoven like tunnels. Tunnels like the ones Foster mentions from Going After Cacciato (Which, after reading a description, I have the full intention of reading) only instead of travelling under Vietnam, this labyrinth connects the literary world. One book leads to another and another. The Web is created by the authors of now replying to authors of the past, a stretched conversation making the Great story richer. I pluck the strings saturated with pages and listen to them resonate through the centuries.The whispers of the world spread across time and distance, they murmur along the threads. parallels of every writer’s and reader’s minds talking to each other, the originality layering, weaving, weaving.
Foster compared the Vietnam tunnels in Going After Cacciato , or at least the entrance to them, to the rabbit hole from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland , he also ,near the end of the chapter compares the search for these connections, to foraging for mushrooms. Now where have I seen mushrooms before?...perhaps Wonderland. If a book is a Rabbit hole, and the web Is a Wonderland, then we are all looking for mushrooms. The only problem is one side makes you grow, and the othern makes you shrink. I choose the grow side, I choose the one that leads me to more mushrooms. I choose to read more books and expand my view of the Web. It has always been my philosophy that the more books I read the more I will understand of the ones I have already read. The more I read the better off I will be.
May I also add that I was a bit miffed by Foster’s “...for beginning readers” assertion in the beginning and near the end of the chapter. I have not been a beginning reader for at least eight years.
** The Photo is a picture of a cat's nervous system that I took at the Perot museum last year, my talk about the feedback between authors and readers in my imaginary web reminded me of a nervous system, so i thought this picture appropriate. Plus i also just like the photo.
