Reading is not just for the "story." It can be for the language, perhaps for complex sentence structure like Charles Dickens, Henry James, or Marcel Proust, or perhaps for idiosyncratic structures like Henry Miller. Or it can be for narrative complexities like William Faulkner.

This is analogous to how one might look at a painting. There is the story that the painting is of, but there is also how the story is told, or how the brush strokes are done, the colors used, whether concrete or abstract, or impressionist or expressionist.

The story is, it's a bowl of fruit. Yes, but how was that bowl of fruit depicted? To me that is literature. The bowl of fruit, or the story, is just the pretext for the art.

Reading is not just for the "story." It can be for the language, perhaps for complex sentence structure like Charles Dickens, Henry James, or Marcel Proust, or perhaps for idiosyncratic structures like Henry Miller. Or it can be for narrative complexities like William Faulkner.

This is analogous to how one might look at a painting. There is the story that the painting is of, but there is also how the story is told, or how the brush strokes are done, the colors used, whether concrete or abstract, or impressionist or expressionist.

The story is, it's a bowl of fruit. Yes, but how was that bowl of fruit depicted? To me that is literature. The bowl of fruit, or the story, is just the pretext for the art.