![]() ![]() Naive as it may sound, one read fiction in order to confirm the reality of one's experience. ![]() This idea of "relating", or identifying, was encouraged by my teachers and even, I believe, by the critical theories of the day. This was during a period in my reading life when I was given to understand that "relating" to the fictional characters or situation was of prime importance, and so I read, I'm sorry to say, narrowly, frugally, unadventurously, as though I had no interest in the greater world and no desire to experience other cycles of thinking and being. I was in my 20s when I read The Girls of Slender Means the first time, and so "related" to the young women who occupy its pages. I remembered nothing about the narrative except for a grotesque dénouement in which naked girls smear their bodies with margarine and, amid great confusion, crawl through a bathroom window to safety. I almost certainly would have read a hardcover edition from the public library, since I did not buy books in those lean years, and the library had not yet begun to stock paperbacks. Someone had recommended it, describing it to me as one of Spark's little "weirdies". But, of course, I had already read it - back in the early 60s when it was first published. ![]()
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