A query I put fruitlessly into the ravenous machines that once gave answers

Who was it who said something like -- in a way all books are games, whether they are actual gamebooks or not, because all readers engage with a novel (I feel like they said novel?) with some level of imaginary wiggle room, constantly envisioning alternatives?

Queer reading is one form of this, but any reading contains some aspect of this push-pull. I think this person said that this is in fact an inevitable part of reading a story, this alternate acceptance and refusal, this shimmering of possibility, such that (famously) you can read a story over and over again and still always hope at a particular point that a character will make a different decision?

(I may have asked this before, because it is an idea that intermittently preoccupies me.)

(Possibly several times, because it might be in my notes from 2023, but who can find those?)

(Now I feel paranoid that I never stop asking this question)

(Also I got double vaccinated today and I am a teeny bit feverish)

§rf§