The author says that his secret is like a complex figure in a persian carpet.
The figure in the carpet meaning.
But when he meets the author in person at a social event vereker tells him that whilst the review is intelligent he has missed the hidden underlying issue which informs all of his writing.
It is told in the first person.
The figure in the carpet plot summary an un named literary critic feels he has successfully reviewed the latest work of hugh vereker a distinguished novelist.
The figure in the carpet has become a short hand or idiom for the key to understanding a writer s work.
And yet the story in which the idiom was born henry james s 1896 tale the figure in the carpet refuses to open itself up to easy interpretations or analysis.
P 365 the work of a literary critic in vereker s eyes is to find the figure in the carpet.
The narrator whose name is never revealed meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention of all the author s works.
In the story a magazine critic of novels meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with his discovery that the author told him that he placed secret meaning in all his works a meaning that the critic never saw.
Vereker is upset because the critics fail to grasp the deeper meaning in his works.