Written by Ambrose Bierce
Coming to writing, putting the first words of a sentence onto the blank page, is like breaking ground and starting a new path: everything proceeds from this point and will course towards an end. As readers, the same is true for coming to a book. We usually start with page-one don’t we? But for a moment, imagine starting somewhere else, or without a path. Imagine choosing a random place in the narrative and literally dropping yourself into it without knowing ‘what has happened’ in the previous pages or without any means of understanding what comes next. Disorientation.
Ambrose Bierce’s An Inhabitant of Carcosa is a disorienting story but it can also serve as a metaphor for writing and reading. In the span of a just a few pages he tells the story of a person lost in a bleak landscape and manages to imbue the reader with a distinct sense of bewilderment. It is as if the first few pages have been cut-off and the important introductory pages have gone missing. The effect is like being caught in the middle of the story instead of the beginning, and it draws attention to how we, as readers, rely on a certain amount of guidance while suspending our disbelief in the bounds of a story.