Books: If not merely nibbled with Sparknotes, their reading swallows hours and demands intense, protracted digestion. Yet paper is hardly known for its sustenance, and computer screens even less so. Why, then, have the greatest of our species—Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Hofman—expended the best years of their lives curing experience into text? And why have the least of our species—Surya and peers—labored, albeit lamely, to make something of these texts? Henry James once observed that “It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature” (Peed). In examining two works whose perspective and approach seem in opposition, one of many explanations will arise: Literature’s narration embodies and therefore awakens us to the perspective of its authors, their contemporaries, our contemporaries, and hopefully, us.
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