The substance of fictional architecture is not bricks and mortar

Host: The library was empty, its silence heavy as snowfall. Long rows of shelves stretched into darkness, the smell of old paper and ink thick as perfume. A single lamp glowed at a table in the back, its light falling in a soft circle where Jack and Jeeny sat — surrounded not by walls, but by words.

The hour was late, the world outside reduced to a distant hum. Inside, they were architects of memory and metaphor, the last two souls awake in a cathedral built from thought.

On the table between them lay an open book, and on its thin, yellowing page was a single underlined line:
“The substance of fictional architecture is not bricks and mortar but evanescent consciousness.” — John Updike.

Jeeny: whispering, almost reverently “Evanescent consciousness. That’s such a beautiful phrase. Like he’s saying the writer builds not with stone, but with breath.”

Jack: half-smiling “Or delusion. Depends how you look at it.”

Jeeny: “You don’t think imagination’s a kind of building material?”

Jack: “I think it’s scaffolding. It helps us climb for a while, but it never holds forever.”

Host: The clock ticked somewhere in the distance, each sound amplified in the stillness. The light trembled slightly as if uncertain whether to stay. Jeeny traced the edge of the book with her fingertip, her eyes far away — seeing something that didn’t yet exist.

Jeeny: “You see, Updike wasn’t just talking about fiction. He was talking about the human mind. Our memories are architectures — rooms built from what we think, not what we touch.”

Jack: “And what happens when the architect forgets the blueprint?”

Jeeny: “Then the structure changes. That’s what consciousness is — a city always under construction.”

Jack: “Or under demolition.”

Jeeny: “You’re cynical.”

Jack: “I’m realistic. Consciousness is temporary — evanescent, like he said. Fiction just imitates that impermanence. It builds with fog.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Fog can be a foundation, if you know how to move through it.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, soft but steady. The lamp flickered again, as if caught in agreement. Outside, the wind pressed against the windows, a gentle insistence — the sound of the world reminding them it was still there, waiting.

Jack: “So you think stories are architecture?”

Jeeny: “Absolutely. Every narrative is a house we step into. The writer builds the walls; the reader decides what they mean.”

Jack: “And the foundation?”

Jeeny: “Consciousness — the fleeting kind. Thoughts, sensations, half-truths, fragments. Fiction’s made of what can’t last, but somehow does.”

Jack: “That’s poetry, not carpentry.”

Jeeny: grinning “Maybe poetry is carpentry. It’s just that the materials are invisible.”

Host: She leaned back, her eyes catching the glow of the lamp. Jack watched her, his expression softened by the kind of admiration that hides itself behind argument. The room around them felt suddenly alive — as if the books themselves were listening.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Updike meant? That the architecture of fiction isn’t there to trap us — it’s there to shelter what we feel. It’s a house made of empathy.”

Jack: “And yet, every reader imagines it differently. So how do you build something that shifts every time someone enters?”

Jeeny: “You don’t control it. You surrender to it. You let the walls breathe.”

Jack: “That’s a dangerous kind of building. It could collapse any minute.”

Jeeny: “Only if you stop believing in it.”

Host: Her voice was calm, but her gaze was intense, like the flame of the lamp reflected in her eyes. Jack exhaled slowly, watching the smoke from his breath drift upward — another evanescent structure, vanishing even as it was made.

Jack: “So in your view, the writer’s a kind of architect of feeling?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Fiction isn’t about places — it’s about presence. When you read, you don’t visit a world; you become it. That’s what Updike meant by consciousness. The reader’s mind completes the building.”

Jack: “Then no two buildings are ever the same.”

Jeeny: “Precisely. Every story’s a collaboration — between imagination and memory, writer and reader, silence and sound.”

Jack: “So the true substance isn’t language. It’s experience.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Language is just the scaffolding we climb to reach it.”

Host: The rain began again, soft against the glass. The room darkened except for their small island of light. Each word between them felt deliberate, sacred, like bricks of thought laid into place.

Jack: “You know what I envy about fiction?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “It gets to rewrite its foundations. Life doesn’t. Once something’s built — a mistake, a regret — it’s permanent.”

Jeeny: “No, it’s not. Memory rewrites too. Every time we remember something, we rebuild it differently. We edit the architecture of ourselves.”

Jack: “So consciousness is a renovation project.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And fiction is the blueprint.”

Jack: “Then Updike’s right. The materials are fleeting — but the form lasts.”

Jeeny: “Like breath caught between two lines of dialogue.”

Host: Her voice dropped to a whisper, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence filled the room like a cathedral. The smell of old books and rain blended, timeless and grounding.

Jack: “You know, I always thought architecture was permanence. But maybe permanence is an illusion. Maybe the real art is in what fades.”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s why fiction feels so alive — because it’s constantly dying and being reborn every time someone reads it.”

Jack: softly “A living ruin.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The lamplight trembled one last time, then steadied, bathing their faces in gold. Their words, like echoes, began to fade into the hush of the night — but something remained. The architecture they had built together in that brief hour — invisible, emotional, fragile — stood quietly in the space between them.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, maybe that’s what we are too — fictional architectures. Made of fleeting moments, stitched together by the stories we tell ourselves.”

Jack: “And when the stories end?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we dissolve back into what we were built from — light, memory, consciousness.”

Jack: smiling faintly “So, no bricks, no mortar. Just the ghosts of thought.”

Jeeny: “And that’s enough.”

Host: The camera would drift upward — over the table, the book, the faint glow of the lamp — rising past the shelves and into the ceiling darkness.

Outside, the rain whispered over the city like the turning of a page.

And as the scene dissolved, John Updike’s words would echo through the still air:

“The substance of fictional architecture is not bricks and mortar but evanescent consciousness.”

Because art, like life,
is not built to last —
only to be felt.

Each story we tell,
each memory we hold,
is a room lit briefly by the fragile miracle
of being aware.