All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that all novels involve elements of imagination, but some authors are more transparent about their fictional nature.
Gene Wolfe's quote reflects on the nature of novels as works of fiction that originate from the imagination. It suggests that while all novels contain fantastical elements, some authors are more candid than others about the fantastic nature of their narratives. This idea invites readers to consider the degree of honesty an author employs in presenting their fictional worlds, and it underscores the blurred line between reality and creativity in literature.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of imagination in literature.
That was when I found out that the best way in the world to make yourself feel better when you have hit bottom is to try to get somebody else to feel better. There are certain things in life that are truly worth knowing, and that is one of the big ones.
Men are said to desire women, Severian. Why do they despise the women they obtain?
He constructed a vast labyrinthine of periods, made impassable by the piling-up of clauses upon clauses-clauses in which oversight and bad grammar seemed manifestations of disdain.
I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.
What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of transcendence when we exclaim 'You know exactly what I mean!' depend for much of their force on the anonymous character of the intimacy between writer and reader.
As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.
When a novel has 200,000 words, then it is possible for the reader to experience 200,000 delights, and to turn back to the first page of the book and experience them all over again, perhaps more intensely.
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