A novel is about particulars: the commonplace grittiness of life as reimagined by someone with a facility for setting down images with words on paper and making a map so rich in detail and resonance that it will become eyeglasses of sorts, worn by readers who will forever see the world of the writer through those lenses. No one who reads Tolstoy can ever see Russia the same way after finishing Tolstoy as he or she might have seen it before coming to Tolstoy. No one who reads Kafka and Joyce can ever see the inner world of humankind the same way after finishing Kafka and Joyce as he or she
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