Brian Castro's Fiction: The Seductive Play of Language By Bernade ...

Readers are invited to enter into Castro’s texts in different ways in the expectation that such entries will stimulate other connections, other ways of reading. Castro accepts Milan Kundera’s belief that the basic premise of the novel is to make a discovery. Reading Castro’s work is as much about discovering connections as it is about uncovering perceptions in the self. As the architect in After China learns: ‘it is not the uncovering of things…but the way things uncover him’ (9). Castro’s ideal reader is the reader identified by Nabokov in his lectures on literature when he says: ‘one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader’ (3). Or in James Ley’s words: ‘It is only through ceaseless interpretation that we might catch a reflected glimpse of the human subject at the heart of literature. Reading is a creative act. Unlike almost everything we are encouraged to consider entertainment, it is an active pursuit. Without this process of interpretation we cannot know ourselves’ (38). Castro’s writing invites us to become active, creative readers. Through the delightful and rewarding engagement with his work, we have the chance to become more fully aware of our imaginative selves and our world.