They did not talk to one another, but merely sat in the same room together telling themselves that they were in Japan . We start bored, we initiate story, and then we pause at the brink of story's end. Fairy tales are to be stupid and yet to be as wise as possible, being stupid. I agree with Riding that the single most important aspect of narrative to be drawn out is its fallibility. Pundits' swoons to the contrary, we can certainly count on the narrative impulse being able to assert itself without our constantly cheering it on.
Narrative is unavoidable.
When we try to avoid it, we freeze or else vacillate so quickly as to disappear altogether. Jackson wanted her post-literary career to serve as a counterexample. Then there are fables. Fables are not fairy tales. But these are separate things.