Cat’s cradle

“That is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It’s a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it’s a way of keeping it alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don’t believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It’s all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat’s cradle, and maybe knot it up a little more. History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, the way cats play. Claw it, chew it, rearrange it and at bedtime its still a ball of string full of knots. Nobody should mind. . . . It’s an all-purpose rainy day pursuit, this reducing of stories called history.”

Jeanette Winterson: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit; Vintage, 1991, p. 93.