ABSTRACT
Between 1965 and today, two ideas have been definitively clarified: that plot could be found also in the form of quotation of other plots, and that the quotation could be less escapist than the plot quoted. In 1972 I edited the A/manacco Bompiani, celebrating 'The Return to the Plot,' though this return was via an ironic re-examination (not without admiration) of Ponson du Terrail and Eugene Sue, and admiration (with very little irony) of some of the great pages of Dumas. The real problem at stake then was,
could there be a novel that was not escapist and, nevertheless, still enjoyable?
