Which of the three is the most Important Rock, Scissors, Paper Question? Which of the three is the most important? The Story? The Author? The Reader?
Calvino’s novel most explicitly raises this
question, but it’s one that can apply to any work of fiction. Obviously, StoryAuthorReader exists in relation to Itself and the Others and the Other, and you might discuss how these terms interact, but you might also try to figure out if two of the terms seem, finally, to be at the service of the other term. [Dr.
Spiller says the Rock is the story, the paper is the author, and the scissors is the reader, for instance.]
Italo Calvino? – If on a winter’s night
Miguel de Cervantes-? Don Quixote
Fyodor Dostoevsky? – Crime and Punishment
This is for a really tough professor – I guess your writers have been up against that before. The paper is to focus on the writer’s opinion more than
sources, so the three books would be the sources. The professors understand that one can probably be discussed better than the others (Calvino, for
instance), but three books need to be compared.
