things. We all know that if five different people are asked to describe one scene, they

will all describe it differently. Some will describe the light, others will focus on what

people's feet were doing, others will look at the, you know, material, shape of the room

or whatever. A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It's almost like their

radar is attuned to the most significant moments.

What literature is about is a record of people with very sophisticated radars who are picking

up on the really important stuff. The interesting thing is that, for me, that radar is not something

we should simply passively accept while we read the book. It's something we should learn

from. We should shut the book and then say, "Okay, I've read Jane Austin or Proust or

Shakespeare and now I'm going to see my mother or I'm going to have a chat with my aunt or

I'm going to go and, you know, talk to some friends in a coffee shop, and rather than

just doing it the normal way, I'm going to look at them and I'm going to ask myself that

basic question, 'how would Jane Austin see them? How would Proust see them? How would

Shakespeare see them?'"

In other words, I'm not just going to look at the world of Shakespeare or Jane Austin

through my eyes, I'm going to look at my world through their eyes. That is the benefit that

is the intelligence giving power of great literature. We are sensitized by the books

we read. And the more books we read and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more

pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses will enable us to see things that we would

otherwise have missed.