Plot Introduction
The novel describes a legend consisting of eight tales the pastoral and pacifist Dogs recite as they pass down an oral legend of a creature known as Man. Each tale is preceded by doggish notes and learned discussion.
An editor's preface notes that after each telling of the legend the pups ask many questions:
- "What is Man?" they'll ask.
- Or perhaps: "What is a city?"
- Or: "What is a war?
- There is no positive answer to any of these questions."
Read more about this topic: City (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or introduction:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)