Ferrante: A story has a time and that time has to have a precise space within which to flow in a linear manner or rise suddenly into the present from the past, bringing with it traditions, ways of using the language, gestures, feelings, the rational and the irrational. Without a space that is drawn precisely, yet with broad margins of indeterminacy offered to the reader’s imagination, the story is in danger of losing concreteness and not gaining purchase.