Stories rely on mystery. Who killed the old lady? We don't know, so we read on to find out. Perhaps we do know, so we read on to see if the killer will be caught. It may be that we know the culprit's identity, and know they'll be caught, but we read on to find out how, and why they did it. Or perhaps we know all these things, but, having been introduced to a set of characters, we stay to get to know them better; and, having got to know them, we stay longer, because it is a mystery how they are going to deal with the problems we now know they have. To tweak a thought by Philip Roth, the mystery of the man who doesn't know he is set up for mystery - that is every man's mystery.

LRB 6 August 2009 | PDF Download