Book of the Month

The Book of the month club initiated large scale debate over literary authority, cultural capital, and literary value. The movement was warned by critics as the usurpment of the public sphere through the massification of critical capital, previously held by the individual. It was believed that masses were coerced into submitting to the authority of a specialised few, who judged the value texts and then distributed them under the pretence of being ‘valuable’. This ‘value’ was dictated by a texts ability to transcend personal taste, meaning that if a majority embraced a certain work, it was because the work held some form of intrinsic rightness that transcended personal values. To me the suggestion here seems to be that value can be seen as objective. In other words texts contain a truth and value independent of subjective values. However it seems misguided to think then, based on the idea of intrinsic truth, that people on any scale can assign and judge any texts to be valuable or true. If a majority find a specific work valuable because of its intrinsic value, then the assumption is that the minorities’ reaction to the text is just incorrect. But surely the same could then be said in the other direction, because the opinions of the people exist independently of a texts value. Putting this aside, the issue of authority is also raised. In a way, mass distribution of texts is an illusion of freedom. It is fair to say that a reader has the right to be highly critical of any text, to form their own opinions in infinite different ways, so in this way receiving a book and actively engaging in it is still an exercise of free will. However in the case of mass distribution, that text has been chosen for us, a limit has already been placed upon us as readers. When the text is distributed to us under the pretence of being the ‘best’, then already that has helped to shape an opinion. So our free response is not so free, in that the sphere in which we can act has already been decided.

The immaculate conception

I am a little unsure why Barthes inspires such passionate reactions to his writings on The Death of The Author. That is not to say that I agree with the eradication of the author from literary readings, but I find it fascinating to consider a world where this is so. Barthes writes in opposition to the idea that textual meaning should be “sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author ‘confiding’ in us”. He replaces this notion with a more complex conceptualisation, whereby on completion, an authors work is released from the restrictions of its conception into the greater world to be rewritten by the reader. So in order to embrace Barthes, we must accept a kind of hyper-subjectivity in which the same text is remoulded infinite times in accordance with the values and experiences of each reader. There are obviously problematic implications of this theory, at least in terms of knowledge. It would be pointless and quite impossible to say anything about any text, or at least anything factual, which seems a rather sad state to be in for all us prospective academics (Although on the plus side any comment we make on a text would be irrefutable and thus worthy of a HD). Luckily Barthes does make some critiques on the author that do not require us to accept such extreme subjectivity. He argues that “to give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing”. I find this to be quite intuitive, as it is foolish to suggest a reading with knowledge of the author’s background and intentions would provoke the same intellectual response as a reading independent of context. The issue then moves away from whether or not the author exists, because this is more a failing than a strength of Barthes theory. It would seem as though authors write with at least some kind of intention, some idea or emotion they wish to express to the reader. If this is in fact the case then the author is entitled to share owner ship with the greater realm of readers, as there would be an inherent objective aspect to be expressed by the text. Rather it becomes a question of what the author brings to a valuation of literary works. On the one hand removing the author from critical reading results in an individualised reception of a text based on the readers experiences, broadening the possibilities of the literary realm and develops a sense of personal truth. On the other hand to refute the authors influence on the text is to ignore possible insights into social and ethical commentaries, which may work to strengthen the response and knowledge of readers own individual interpretations.Perhaps the author also offers a more concrete connection between a fictional work and the real world, which is both comforting and confronting knowing that fiction can reflect reality

Edmundon: Transforming students like lvl 23 Pikachu's

I guess after reading Bayard’s work, Edmundson’s Against Readings seemed to initially provide a less dim perspective on the merits of reading texts in depth. However if Bayard represented literary detachment to its extremity, then Edmundson perhaps leans too far in the opposite direction in asking us to “befriend” our reading. The article works as a critique of contemporary critical literature both in terms of its misguided content and the detrimental effects it has on individualism. Viewing texts through a predefined framework (Edmundson uses Marxism as one example) promotes a distancing scepticism that undermines the true essence of what we should receive from a text, that being a more intimate transformative relationship. At its core this argument is based on the assumption that the value of a text arises from its ability to initiate the “experience of change” in the reader, through which ones morality is in some way influenced for the nourishment of the mind and soul. I can find no reason to disagree with Edmundson’s conceptual link between reading and morality, as even the most morally desolate texts inspire some form of reaction, even in retaliation to the suggestions of a novel. However it seems nearly impossible to separate morality from rationality, rendering Edmundson’s suggestion that the primary role of education is to inspire morality fairly narrow. As readers is it not in our nature to discover why we respond the way we do to certain texts? And in many cases, critical literature about texts can provide insights into the mechanism behind the moral transformations that we are said to experience on some level. I also wonder then, if readers can become inspired and transformed by critical literature. A reader who felt a connected relationship to certain feminine aspects of a “befriended” text, would surely emerge from exploring a feminist reading of that text with a stronger understanding and stronger connection than before. So I guess I feel as though there ought to be a middle-ground between the morale and the rational. In becoming emotionally invested in our reading as Edmundson suggests, I agree that we as readers benefit from the closer relationship. Yet if our reading is distanced from skepticism and rationale, how are we to understand why we respond they way we do?, and how do we further these responses?.  So in turn, perhaps the strongest relationship we can form to a text emerges from the reader being morally reflexive to each reading, whilst simultaneously seeking out the reasons why such reactions are so, through a deep and skeptical review of the critical literature.

About an article i haven't read...I promise I didn't Bayard I promise

Q. Where does a general keep his armies?

A. In his sleevies!!

In reading Bayard’s “How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read”, I found myself intrigued with philosophical implications of the concept of “non-reading”.  Bayard defines non-reading a “genuine activity, one that consists of adopting a stance towards in relation to the immense tide of books that prevents you from drowning”.  What is fore grounded here, to Bayard’s credit, is the identification of interconnected discourses between the reader, the text and the world. No text exists in isolation, according to Bayard, with each work contributing to the larger intellectual sphere in which the reader interacts. Thus in turn, the mere presence of the reader (or non-reader) is enough to allow one to draw from this greater literary domain spanning across an infinite number of books.

It strikes me that Bayard does not seem concerned with much of the practical applications of non-reading he supplies. In fact he appears well aware of the at times humorous implications of what he suggests. I would argue instead, that the act of speaking on unread texts is merely a simple medium utilised by Bayard, to mask a far complex development of literary circulation in the metaphysical sense. It is indeed quite intuitive to perceive that books act upon those who do not read, purely in virtue of their existence in a greater discourse.  He suggests that the act of non-reading is therefore exercising “a wisdom superior to most readers...with greater respect to the books itself”. It is in these instances where I am struck with a sense of counter-intuition on the part of Bayard’s theory. There seems to be a disloyalty between the figurative and the practical. Theoretically the implications of non-reading enable a greater connection between reader and culture, through which the reader is simultaneously connected to every part of the larger world. To actively read a text would be to narrow that connection, limiting ones perception of the literary world and permanently separating the reader from the infinite number of remaining unread texts. Yet to follow this theory practically in my opinion, at the very least feels shallow. On some level it seems as though non-reading is merely the illusion of connectedness, and it is hard to fathom viewing the world purely in terms of one items relation to another without having some firm starting point.  There is also a distinction to be made between experiencing texts and simply knowing them. The latter is the only option available for non-readers, and surely experiencing a limited number of texts on a deeper level through reading provides a truer representation of culture than knowing it from another source. Taking Bayard’s claim that the “interior of the book is its exterior, since what counts in a book is the books alongside it” further, does the literary work itself not become an arbitrary exercise? Surely if I was to take James Joyce’s Ulysses and replace some pages with my own it would have some effect on what the text contributes to culture. But who of us can really say now, having read a book or two in our lifetimes. Bayard’s greater literary gate has already begun to close to us, and even as you read this you are becoming more aware of the many Lit Theory blogs you will...never...get to read.

As I have always been taught, there is no way more fitting for introductions than a joke.

Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?


A. Fish

(pause for applause 3...2....1...)


Here follows (hopefully), a collection of commentaries and impressions based around the ENGL 3655 texts that some of you may find interesting, or at least in the style of Bayard, worthy of 'non-reading'.


A horse walks into a bar. The bar tender says "Hey."



 "Sure." The horse reples.



(Always leave on a high)

Nathaniel