Graham Greene once said in an interview that too many of his characters left from the door by which they came in. In some of Greeneâ??s fiction, though, change occurs: the whisky priest in The Power and the Glory and Holly Martins in The Third Man each leave by a door through which they did not enter. They have been transformed by their experience. What about ourselves as readers? Do we change in the course of a story?
A century ago many people thought that literature could change us, and be improving. We moderns may no longer be so sure. But we can turn the assertion into a question: can fiction be good for us?
Read Full Article »