The Tension between Reality and Fiction

Over the course of the narrative, the work of three writers explores and develops the theme of the tensions between reality and fiction: the two writers whose intentions, actions, and struggles define the narrative’s action, and the writer of the book, the author, who introduces this theme in the novel’s earliest pages and then plays it out both in what he does and what his characters do. The point is not made to suggest that either Henry (the protagonist-writer) or the taxidermist (the antagonist-writer) is intended to be a surrogate for the author, although there are arguably similarities in the experience of both novel-writer and protagonist-writer. Rather, the point is made to suggest that there is a very clear narrative and thematic connection between authorial intention and the experience of the characters he has created. In any case, all...