I’ve been thinking (again) (endlessly) about that fabulous phase change, when fiction goes from reading to dreaming.

“Suspension of disbelief” is really apt, because it feels like lifting off. A sudden drop in friction. Floating. Flying.

I was most aware of the phase change as a young person, a novice reader. I remember being very conscious, sometimes, that it was NOT happening; that my wheels were just bumping along the runway. I remember giving up.

There are plenty of adult readers who rarely, or never, take flight. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means they read a different way. Enjoy different things.

Likewise, there are readers who jet along at a speed I can’t quite imagine. Their unit of recognition isn’t the phrase or the paragraph but something close to the page. They read in great gulps, like baleen whales devouring whole regions of ocean. I believe this kind of reader is most often found deep in genre, where a certain formalism reigns: “I see what you’re doing here. Yes. Okay. Yes.”