Chap­ter XIV begins inside the calm sanc­tu­ary of the library, the one room in the house that resists the heat of the after­noon. Sur­round­ed by book­shelves paint­ed white and touched with the ele­gance of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, the space is as much a muse­um of thought as it is a place of retreat. The air feels still and reflec­tive, invit­ing both con­ver­sa­tion and curios­i­ty. A par­tic­u­lar wall, lined with books that seem ancient and well-read, hides some­thing far more unusual—a door that opens not to knowl­edge but to nov­el­ty. Behind it rests the mum­my-case of an Egypt­ian woman, brought back long ago by Sir Fer­di­nan­do on his Grand Tour. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of fab­ri­cat­ed knowl­edge on the shelves and an actu­al rem­nant of his­to­ry behind them sets the tone. Truth and illu­sion sit side by side, and the guests begin to explore this odd pair­ing with amuse­ment and skep­ti­cism.

Mr. Sco­gan, quick to seize the the­atri­cal moment, begins describ­ing the fake books with exag­ger­at­ed seri­ous­ness. He rat­tles off absurd titles such as the four­teen-vol­ume Ency­clopae­dia and, most notably, the Tales of Knock­espotch. With dry wit, he insists that Knock­espotch is the most valu­able of them all, though it exists only as a punch­line. Denis, Anne, and Mary join in the dis­cus­sion, their reac­tions both play­ful and reveal­ing. Denis remains focused on lit­er­ary real­ism, defend­ing his cur­rent writ­ing project about sub­tle emo­tion­al devel­op­ments in the every­day. Mr. Sco­gan chal­lenges this, claim­ing that books should ignite the imag­i­na­tion rather than imi­tate life’s unevent­ful crawl. To him, lit­er­a­ture ought to lib­er­ate the mind, not trap it in the ordi­nary. The debate play­ful­ly expos­es the con­trast­ing philoso­phies around art and sto­ry­telling.

Sco­gan takes this oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­sect read­ing itself, call­ing it a sophis­ti­cat­ed vice. He com­pares the act to tick­ling the intel­lect while avoid­ing real engage­ment or reflec­tion. Read­ing, in his view, often acts as a dis­trac­tion masked as enrich­ment. The group chuck­les, but the com­ment lands with truth. Mary sees read­ing as a plea­sure, Anne as a tool for insight, while Denis insists it’s a means to con­struct mean­ing from rou­tine expe­ri­ence. The con­ver­sa­tion begins to high­light a deep­er conflict—not just how lit­er­a­ture is writ­ten, but why it’s con­sumed. Fic­tion, for some, is a mir­ror. For oth­ers, it’s a door. The imag­i­nary Knock­espotch becomes a sym­bol of that door—ridiculous yet refresh­ing in its refusal to mim­ic.

Mr. Sco­gan then defends Knock­espotch as a vision­ary, a rebel against the lit­er­ary norms that favor dull mim­ic­ry over wild inven­tion. He prais­es the fic­tion­al author’s refusal to write about din­ners, courtships, and minor moral dilem­mas. Instead, Knock­espotch gives read­ers giants, labyrinths, and adven­tures untouched by mod­ern man­ners. The world of Knock­espotch is raw, fan­ci­ful, and dri­ven by pos­si­bil­i­ty. Sco­gan argues that great lit­er­a­ture shouldn’t just rep­re­sent life—it should rein­vent it. Anne lis­tens thought­ful­ly, Denis looks uncon­vinced, and Mary seems caught between delight and dis­be­lief. The con­ver­sa­tion turns from play­ful cri­tique to a gen­tle philo­soph­i­cal dig at the state of mod­ern sto­ry­telling.

In this chap­ter, satire meets reflec­tion in a way that feels both clever and sub­tly sin­cere. The library, filled with fake titles and a real mum­my, becomes a metaphor for the blurred line between per­for­mance and authen­tic­i­ty in both life and art. Mr. Scogan’s mock­ery is sharp, but his long­ing for sto­ries that break away from con­ven­tion car­ries real weight. Denis’s real­ism isn’t dis­missed so much as placed under ques­tion­ing: is chron­i­cling life’s sub­tle moments enough when read­ers hunger for some­thing more? The dia­logue doesn’t resolve the tension—it sim­ply expos­es it. By doing so, it invites read­ers to con­sid­er their own pref­er­ences and what they seek when open­ing a book.

Today’s audi­ence may find this reflec­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant. As con­tent sat­u­rates dig­i­tal plat­forms, sto­ries are often shaped to match trends, not truths. Real­ism dom­i­nates, but does it still cap­ti­vate? Read­ers often escape to fan­ta­sy, myth, and sur­re­al­ism not out of imma­tu­ri­ty, but out of exhaus­tion. Real life is everywhere—on screens, in rou­tines, in con­ver­sa­tions. So the need for imag­i­na­tion, for some­thing unshack­led, remains not only valid but nec­es­sary. Mr. Scogan’s praise for the absurd and fab­u­lous is more than com­ic relief—it’s a call to val­ue cre­ativ­i­ty for its own sake.

What the chap­ter qui­et­ly offers is a renewed appre­ci­a­tion for the role of fic­tion in lift­ing peo­ple out of their con­text. Real­ism serves a pur­pose, yes—but fan­ta­sy reminds us what it’s like to feel awe, sur­prise, and pos­si­bil­i­ty. In the dusty qui­et of the library, among fake books and real relics, this point shines bright­est. Lit­er­a­ture is more than a mir­ror or a diary. At its best, it becomes a passageway—sometimes even hid­den behind a shelf—into the untamed, thrilling unknown.