Absorption and Other Worlds

Have you felt it? Yes, I feel certain you have felt it, the feeling of being IN THE SCENE while reading an extraordinarily good book.
Many years ago, I felt that way while reading Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, in particular the stories of Rikki Tikki the mongoose. He was guarding the young boy of the house from the deadly cobra and it wanted revenge in an eye-for-an-eye kind of way for Rikki Tikki killing its partner. The two of them stood off, dead-locked in an animal's Mexican Standoff, eac...