Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work - the writer might have died long ago.
Jasper FfordeLiterature is claimed to be a mirror of the world,โ I said, โbut the Outlanders are fooling themselves. The BookWorld is as orderly as people in the RealWorld *hope* their own world to beโit isnโt a mirror, itโs an aspiration.
Jasper FfordeShe wasn't the only one to be physically morphed by reader expectation. Miss Havisham was now elderly whether she liked it or not, and Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker and smoked a ridiculously large pipe. The problem wasn't just confined to the classics. Harry Potter was seriously pissed off that he'd have to spend the rest of life looking like Daniel Radcliffe.
Jasper Fforde