intertext

I know what you mean. That's a marvellous response to literature, and sometimes literature is like that for me, too. Poetry certainly is; I'll reach for Hopkins, or Keats or Yeats or almost anything to get that spiritual sense of the potential for beauty in the universe and the power of the imagination. But for me, often, reading novels is like what watching TV or going to movies is like for others - sheer escapism. I don't want to read something to improve my soul, or to learn about the depths of the human spirit, I want to explore new worlds, boldly go... (no that's been done, hasn't it ha ha). Hence Harry Potter!