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Tim Osner's avatar

Fine and thoughtful post, Mark. You might like the work of perception psychologist James J Gibson. Though he deals with visual perception, meaning is intrinsically inner woven.

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J. M. Elliott's avatar

is it an either/or proposition? why can't stories have both? while i agree that english professors have tortured stories to death in the search for propositional meaning, i do believe that stories should be _about something_ to be worthwhile. there is a delicate balance to be struck so that books don't veer into the political, moralistic, or didactic, but great books still have meaning at their core. the experience of the story, its world, its characters, and their fates are what invests the reader in those larger themes, but it is the underlying meaning of all their struggles that binds the reader to the story and makes the most indelible impression. we identify with and care about characters because of the perceived relevance their stories have to our own (or those we care about) and that, i think, comes down to meaning.

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