An Intimate Fiction?

Another aspect concerning Ong's "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction" is the evolution of authors' fictionalized audiences through history.  As society became more comfortable with textual communication, it also evolved in the roles audiences were expected to portray for their writers.  Ong calls  these adaptations part of the game of literacy.  "Readers over the ages have had to learn this game of literacy, how to conform themselves to the projections of the writers they read, or at least how to operate in terms of these projections" (Ong 12).  Through changes in society throughout history came changes in the expectations and adaptations of writers and their audiences.

Written narrative was originally the simple transcription of oral narrative, as is evident in the Iliad and the Odyssey (Ong 12).  The recording of an oral communication.  In this way, written narrative originally served as a sort of education.  The reader was presented with a history, but was not a part of the history.  The reader was an observer looking into and analyzing events.  The reader was simply separated by the role of account in original written narratives.  Then, as times changed and the game of literacy evolved, readers were asked to apprise new roles.  The most interesting change to me, noted by Ong, was the role Hemingway projected to his readers.  The reader of Hemingway was forced to be the narrator's companion or chum.  The reader was to believe that the events in the narrative were in direct relation to the reader's life, the narrative was a collected representation of memories.  "Not presentation, but recall.  the writer needs only to point, for what he wants to tell you about is not the scene at all but his feelings" (Ong 13).  By using definite articles almost exclusively in his writing, Hemingway creates the illusion of familiarity within his readers.  The setting and events are descriptive, but left obscure in a way that allows the reader to "remember" the narrative.  By the time of Hemingway, literature had progressed to the point to where it would allow the reader to take on this role.  The readers were ready and Hemingway cast his readers into this new position - a position which would have been unacceptable in an earlier era.

This brings me to my question.  Does anyone else view the evolution of the textual relationship between the writer and the readers as a sort of intimate relationship?  One that starts off with the basics and then becomes comfortable with the idea of trying new things?  Just a thought.