While a picture transports the spectator almost instantly into a landscape, language can only describe it detail by detail, bringing it slowly into the reader’s mind. How can a literary work capture the feel of a place in both its atmosphere and its topography without losing the reader in a descriptive forest? One solution, proposed by Balzac, is to ________________________. Balzac’s novels open with detailed portrayals of the setting, but the descriptions never threaten the reader’s sense of orientation because they trace a precise path through the fictional world. When the novel describes a house, the narrator inspects the building in a systematic manner, approaching it from the street, examining the garden and the front, entering through the main door, and walking from room to room, as would a real estate agent or a prospective resident. The reader ends up with a precise notion of the layout of the building, all the way down to the floor plan.
* topography: 지형