Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature by Erich Auerbach

Chapter 1: Odysseus' Scar

Odysseus' Scar is an essay in which Auerbach compares the rhetoric of Homer's The Odyssey to Genesis from The Pentateuch/Torah/Hebrew Scriptures/The Bible.

In summary,
The Odyssey is described as a surface narrative. All details that are necessary for the reader to know are explicitly stated and little is left to the imagination. The poem flows in a linear, horizontal fashion taking the reader on a meticulous, guided journey.

The Bible juxtaposes itself to The Odyssey by giving a narrative filled with gaps, known as lacuna. These gaps are left to the reader to fill in, creating a different experience for each individual and, inevitably, a different take away from the story. The lacuna, can be considered unintentional, accidentally left by the redactor...OR... intentional. Implying that the author, in this case the J writer of Genesis, wanted the reader to create their own meaning from the work, inherently making the reader learn more through the necessity to personally compose part of the narrative themselves than what would be attained if less thought had to be put into creating understanding of the narrative.