A Writing Quote From Charles De Lint
“Every book tells a different story to the person who reads it … How they perceive that book will depend on who they are. A good book reflects the reader, as much as it illuminates the author’s text.”
~ Charles De Lint, The Little Country (1991)
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“Yes,” I said, on reading these lines in Charles de Lint’s The Little Country. For me, the quote resonated with others that see reading as an interactive process between writer and reader—like the AS Byatt quote here, or the very salient observation from Gordon Lish, here, on what books are really about.
It also resonates with Mansi’s observation in the Group Haarth series, speaking to the positives of being in the group: “…we get to see various points of view and different sides of the story from the other person’s perspective…”
I believe that as authors, we must always understand, and accept, that once a book is published there will be as many interpretations and experiences of the text as there are readers. 😉
