Publisher's Synopsis
On Christmas Eve, while the Perfect Reader sits in his armchair immersed in a book -- so absorbed that he has let the fire go out -- I propose to slip gently down the chimney and leave this tribute in his stocking. It is not a personal tribute. I speak, on behalf of the whole fraternity of writers, this word of gratitude -- and envy.
But the Perfect Reader, for whom all fine things are written, knows no such delicate anguish. When he reads, it is without any arri�re pens�e, any twingeing consciousness of self. I like to think of one Perfect Reader of my acquaintance. And now he is reading. I can see him reading. I know just how his mind feels! Oh, the Perfect Reader!
