Namwali Serpell

What happened next?

This is why we love stories for this reason.

But she wanted us to be able to have both that suspense and the suspense of the how and why it happened.

Because for her, writing is really a form of philosophy.

Yeah.

So you have to be able to go back and reread that opening, for example, of The Bluest Eye.

Now that you have finished the book and see everything that is sort of latent, right, is hovering under those words.

So I think Morrison's a very specific aesthetic technique.

But I recommend rereading for everybody, I think, and for every text.

And I think best texts, as I said, beg for rereading.

They want to be reread.

Because there's always this kind of double self that you encounter, right?

You remember what you felt or thought when you first read the book.

And then you have your new self.

reading the book.

Just that, I think, is enough to make rereading worthwhile.

It's a form of self-reflection.

I mean, that's a wonderful question.

I just did an event here in California with Cathy Parcon, who's the wonderful author.

And I've had the opportunity over the course of my book tour of doing close readings with my conversation partners.