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

[radiantfracture]

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§

Comments

[sabotabby]

Ooof I hope you're on the mend soon. Getting double vaccinated (right before a week where I had a 14-hour day) really fucked me up.

I haven't heard the quote but I'm intrigued.

[oracne]

I haven't heard this quote but it makes perfect sense.

Makes me think of how almost all stories are in dialogue with others the writer has read and written.

[thewayne]

Got my measles shot a week ago, will be getting my Covid shot today which is likely to result in a mild fever and somewhat wretched weekend but that's okay, and next Friday will be an MMR shot. Which will make me fairly up to date, as far as I know.

[radiantfracture]

That is a *lot* of shots. Good work. The Covid knocked me out for about 16 hours, but I felt better by the next afternoon.

[radiantfracture]

Yes, great point! So much writing is one person saying "yes, and" or "not that but this" to a previous text.

[radiantfracture]

It was a rough night, but I'm feeling better.

[ioplokon]

Maaaaaaaaaaaybe from Felski's The Uses of Literature? Been a long time since I read it & that's not one of the specific arguments I remember, but it seems like something she might have said.

[thewayne]

Correction: flu shot was last week.  Yeah, a lot of shots but that's what's due.  I should have gotten the flu shot a month ago, now was when my Covid was due.  Couldn't get the MMR until I spoke with my immunologist, which was last Tuesday.  As I said, I usually run a low fever for two days after my Covid shot, and now, three hours after the shot, I'm beginning to feel it a bit even though my temperature is still pretty much normal.  Because I'm immune-compromised, I will not get more than one shot at a time.

[mirawonderfulstar]

I feel like I've also heard this exact thing before but I have no idea where. Maybe in The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern? It's interesting you're preoccupied with this right now because I've been replaying a game I like trying to think about how one would write a time loop novel successfully when the time loop is a narrative so much better suited to a video game and thinking similar thoughts to this myself. Seeing this post on dreamwidth had me like, wait, *I* didn't say that, surely...

[radiantfracture]

I feel like it was a nonfiction source? But also I'm happy for any excuse to revisit The Starless Sea.

Time Loops! What comes to mind is Carmen Maria Machado's amazing memoir /In the Dream House/, in which (you might know) one of the chapters is structured like a choose your own adventure.

Something like that, with a slightly gamebook vibe, might work? That might just be because I love games, though...

Seeing this post on dreamwidth had me like, wait, *I* didn't say that, surely...

Ha, maybe I am quoting you.