How, then, does the written word work? What part of....

“ How, then, does the written word work? What part of a reader absorbs it - or should that be a double question: what part of a reader absorbs what part of a text? I think that underneath, or alongside, a reader's conscious response to a text, whatever is needy in him is taking in whatever the text offers to assuage that need. ”

Diana Athill

From : Somewhere Towards the End