a kind of selflessness

I'm reading my way through all of Patrick White's novels and short story collections. I finished The Vivisector, which I've actually read before, and today I started on A Fringe of Leaves. At first I felt like it was OK, but then, once it got going with the main story, it was like - yes, this is good stuff...this is great literature. 

There's that unmistakable thing. Is it always the same thing? It feels like it in a way. It's a kind of vividness and immediacy. It's a kind of flow, where you cease to be aware that you're reading a book, and you experience the story.