Quote of the Day (John Banville, on the Novel’s ‘Peculiar Contract’ With the Reader)

“One of the oddest aspects of the novel is the peculiar contract that it forges — how wonderfully ambiguous is the English language — between itself and the reader. Why are they believed, these cunningly fashioned lies? Sancho Panza, Emma Bovary, Leopold Bloom, these artefacts, conjured out of words, can seem more real to us than the person sitting opposite us at the breakfast table. What could be stranger? We are all children, longing for a story at bedtime, happy to suspend our disbelief for the sake of the fun.”— Irish novelist-memoirist John Banville, “Where Great Novels Come From,” The Financial Times, Sept. 2-3, 2023

Photo of John Banville taken May 10, 2019, by Jindrich Nosek (NoJin).