Do you consider a book based on its popularity?

[JCamilo]

I think the reason (which may have something to do also with the latino culture) is that guys like Marquez and the rest of SA magic realism is that their text is actually simple. The problem lies in the symbolism, but I think people can read it without considering the other levels of interpretation, just the superficial.
After all... Marquez is like fantasy, right. And Fantasy is for kids, right? It cannt be serious. It does not harm anyone...
(I suppose Kafka is also well accepted because of that. And it makes sense, since Marquez is a son of Kafka.)

[JBI]

I think the reason (which may have something to do also with the latino culture) is that guys like Marquez and the rest of SA magic realism is that their text is actually simple. The problem lies in the symbolism, but I think people can read it without considering the other levels of interpretation, just the superficial.
After all... Marquez is like fantasy, right. And Fantasy is for kids, right? It cannt be serious. It does not harm anyone...
(I suppose Kafka is also well accepted because of that. And it makes sense, since Marquez is a son of Kafka.)

So you mean, in a sense, they treat it as an interesting fairytalesque tale, without looking at its implications about Colombian/Latin American/ post-colonial people? In that sense, it would make sense. It seems people read Faulkner without really reading him. I would also point out that Eco is read, or I guess, was read without any real understanding of his works (though he took that into account, and purposely wrote his books with two books within one)

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston went through a similar funk. It was selected by the CBC for the Canada Reads contest, which it won (a public contest where a bunch of pop-celebrity panelists nominate, discuss, and eliminate Canadian works in a Survivor-like contest), and was virtually completely misinterpreted, enforcing the opposite agenda the book put forward. It was read as celebrating the coming together of Canada as a nation, and other such matters, rather than a lament for the lost opportunity Newfoundland had at being an independent nation. It was held up as a great example of federalism in Canada, rather than an anti-colonial attack on Britain, and Canada alike.

Reader response criticism of this sort is actually interesting. It shows us how one can appropriate a book to suit their own agenda, by manipulating the artistic elements of a text into fitting their interpretation. This can be done, and has been done, by academics. We do though, like to think, that if anyone can read, it is academic readers. Because, after all, if someone finds gaps in their reading, they can make them look like total idiots, the way, for instance, in the 80s, a 4th year undergraduate student totally debased the Canadian Literature critic Donald Goellnicht (rather brutally I must add) for his misinterpretation of Joy Kogawa's Obasan, in a rather well read periodical, Canadian Literature Quarterly. I don't think anyone is going to go to some random person's house and yell at them for appropriating a text to suit their own agenda, so there is that.

Or, an even better example, the critic John Metcalf's war against the Penguin Anthology of Canadian short stories, which he has carried out through various editions already.

In that sense, we know there is a check on academic opinion, in fact, a rather strong check on their opinions. But for the opinion of the masses? Certainly not. The number of non-peer edited history books that make the best seller lists certainly attest to this. There have been a large string of bestselling Islamophobic and anti-religious texts in the past few years, which have sold handsomely, but none of them are verified for anything. None of them are actual critiques at all - merely mass-market creations by pseudo-intellectuals.

In that sense, there are clearly publishing problems. The opinion of the masses, by means of mass-media can be manipulated. There are no real checks, on mass news media, outside of academic circles (Chomsky tries, but he, like everyone else, merely reads the news, and therefore isn't in a position either to really check anything). If we apply that same theory to book publishing, we can say that the opinions of the New York Times, for instance, can manipulate, and do manipulate what people read, the same way bad reviews hurt movie sales. In other words, the fact that the press has been very supportive of Harry Potter has led to its great sales. I doubt that a newspaper editor will print an article criticizing Twilight, for instance, on the same page advertising the book. In truth, book advertisements in the paper are there to make the paper money, and if those books don't sell, chances are, the ad revenue will decrease.



So no, when it comes down to it, I really can't possibly accept the opinion of mass-sales as anything but a signifier of appeal to the masses, through possibly good writing, or more likely, good advertisement.

[electricpenguin]

Best-seller lists don't bother me at all. I won't necessarily go seeking out a best-seller, but I see no logical reason why the popularity of a book should bother me. Really, though, I don't pay much attention to best-seller lists. I do pay a bit more attention to word of mouth.

Well said, Drkshadow03!

Word of mouth is my most important consideration when I'm browsing the bookshelves, and I'll not turn my nose up at an Opera-stickered book if I've heard good things about it. If popular fiction is good enough for academica, it's good enough for me

Having said that, I'll chew my own arm off before I read another Dan Brown book.

EP

[andave_ya]

If it's popular here on this site, I'll keep it in mind or put it on my to-read list. I read 1984 because of all the people here who kept raving about it, but I couldn't fathom why they loved it so much.

[JCamilo]

So you mean, in a sense, they treat it as an interesting fairytalesque tale, without looking at its implications about Colombian/Latin American/ post-colonial people? In that sense, it would make sense. It seems people read Faulkner without really reading him. I would also point out that Eco is read, or I guess, was read without any real understanding of his works (though he took that into account, and purposely wrote his books with two books within one)

Yes, just think that when the XIX century re-organized the genres, fantasy was pushed to child's faery tale, despite guys like Hans Christian Andersen and Lewis Caroll, so it was dimissed as a minor genre (Serious genres were Science FIction or Horror) and today is either for kids or geeks of the tolkien style (altough Tolkien style have nothing to do with the general formula of best sellers). It is easy, until some guys started to bring back the metaphysical to the stories and you have guys like Marquez.
But in the end, Isabel Allende and Paulo Coelho - who are simple minded writers, able to build up just the first lawyer of possible meanings of work - who are the the true best-sellers.
Not that is something new. The complexity of greek dramas and mythology also had popular appeal and when the academy started to study the faery tales, which were considered simple minded stuff as well, they are surprised to see the roots and depth of some of those tales. Or Dante. People is reading Dante for centuries without passing by Inferno. His figure is always serious like judging everyone. Dantesque is something close to the grotesque and not the beauty and harmony of Paradise.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston went through a similar funk. It was selected by the CBC for the Canada Reads contest, which it won (a public contest where a bunch of pop-celebrity panelists nominate, discuss, and eliminate Canadian works in a Survivor-like contest), and was virtually completely misinterpreted, enforcing the opposite agenda the book put forward. It was read as celebrating the coming together of Canada as a nation, and other such matters, rather than a lament for the lost opportunity Newfoundland had at being an independent nation. It was held up as a great example of federalism in Canada, rather than an anti-colonial attack on Britain, and Canada alike.

Didnt the Dark Ages Catholic Church transform Virgil in a pagan prophet of Christ birth? Or how now Mark Twain is a racist and even the whole controvery about Heart of Darkness? Or even Freud, who took over several stories and gave the interpretation that suited to him? Sometimes it is good, does not matter if the interpretation is righ, but if enhances the work, allow it to be re-read, etc. But there is a limit, the day I saw a guy saying to me Candide was a form to defend ignorance was one of those days.

Reader response criticism of this sort is actually interesting. It shows us how one can appropriate a book to suit their own agenda, by manipulating the artistic elements of a text into fitting their interpretation. This can be done, and has been done, by academics. We do though, like to think, that if anyone can read, it is academic readers. Because, after all, if someone finds gaps in their reading, they can make them look like total idiots, the way, for instance, in the 80s, a 4th year undergraduate student totally debased the Canadian Literature critic Donald Goellnicht (rather brutally I must add) for his misinterpretation of Joy Kogawa's Obasan, in a rather well read periodical, Canadian Literature Quarterly. I don't think anyone is going to go to some random person's house and yell at them for appropriating a text to suit their own agenda, so there is that.

Yeah, critical reading is important but not the only form of reading. Like Umberto Eco that you mentions. Since he understands this (basead on his academic study), he tries to serve both masters. I say he fails, Eco still too complex for masses and somehow not where he would like to be (Which is more close to Italo Calvino - who probally had the best combo, because he used popular forms and not pop forms)... I know some writers who are upset with any appropriation of their text. Even to different media, and that was dumb. It is like Homer hunting down Virgil for turning Ulisses in bad example and Aneas in the good guy.
But things go to far when someone starst to dismiss the critical reading at all (some say it is not funny, but I wonder if they understand to some people it is funny to make a critical reading and that is why they do it) like paulo coelho did, saying writers are the dogs and critics the lightposts, the dog pees on the lightposts and go one, the lightposts can do what? Of course, some critic could say: the pee will be clean, and the light will still show what the dog did.

Or, an even better example, the critic John Metcalf's war against the Penguin Anthology of Canadian short stories, which he has carried out through various editions already.

In that sense, we know there is a check on academic opinion, in fact, a rather strong check on their opinions. But for the opinion of the masses? Certainly not. The number of non-peer edited history books that make the best seller lists certainly attest to this. There have been a large string of bestselling Islamophobic and anti-religious texts in the past few years, which have sold handsomely, but none of them are verified for anything. None of them are actual critiques at all - merely mass-market creations by pseudo-intellectuals.


In that sense, there are clearly publishing problems. The opinion of the masses, by means of mass-media can be manipulated. There are no real checks, on mass news media, outside of academic circles (Chomsky tries, but he, like everyone else, merely reads the news, and therefore isn't in a position either to really check anything). If we apply that same theory to book publishing, we can say that the opinions of the New York Times, for instance, can manipulate, and do manipulate what people read, the same way bad reviews hurt movie sales. In other words, the fact that the press has been very supportive of Harry Potter has led to its great sales. I doubt that a newspaper editor will print an article criticizing Twilight, for instance, on the same page advertising the book. In truth, book advertisements in the paper are there to make the paper money, and if those books don't sell, chances are, the ad revenue will decrease.

Academics cannt do much but keep teaching, after all the control of mass communication is with the industry and the industry will pay the bills after all. They will always be outside (altough you do not need to be inside to see the effects of the mass communication), Coleridge was rather critical against all Novels and Romances, probally already guessing that they are an answer to the appeal of masses, but the masses also showed good taste and Dickens, Tolstoi, Victor Hugo, etc became their favorites at one point or another.
Somehow, I feel like the best-seller industry is rather dying, the novel/romance format almost finished. In one century they may be the things of the past...

So no, when it comes down to it, I really can't possibly accept the opinion of mass-sales as anything but a signifier of appeal to the masses, through possibly good writing, or more likely, good advertisement.

I would say accepting the appeal of masses or the appeal of one authority makes no sense at all. The authority is usually good for a critical dialogue or critical study. But if you are not seeking it - it will be useless.
Once I considered about writing a story where one character would be some short of psychoreadinganalist of shorts. He would analyse you and then give you a list of books basead on your psychological perfil - when and where you should read those books, with or without music, at home or taking a bus, after eating, before sleeping, etc. Then I considered that turning this in fiction would make a possible form to get money if I get too old unusable. So I gave up...

[grotto]

I’m avid used book store browser and I am always amazed at the piles of trendy novels sitting in the $1.00 rack that haven’t even had their spines broke. Maybe a lot of these books are given as subtle advice gifts from a watcher of Oprah to someone who they want to, ah, how should I say, help along?

I avoid the masses because, well, there isn’t original thought in the masses. The masses like to all agree on what they think is good or what it is they are supposed to feel. While true, there are some gems out there, I avoid lists and as far as I’m concerned, Oprah is the anti Christ, along with Rosie O’Donnell. The peons follow them around looking for reasons to live. Just when you think it can’t get any shallower, someone lets a few more inches out of the pool.

If one wants to breathe fresh air, one should avoid public meetings and churches. (Nietzsche)

[Drkshadow03]

I am afraid I have to disagree, JBI. The problem with your statement about One Hundred Years of Solitude and reading literature in general is that it reifies interpretation and meaning to a single correct answer. We're back to literature as the unraveling of a puzzle. Put the pieces in the correct place and you have your meaning. Literature is far more organic, a give-and-take between artist and reader. If done correctly the text and the author's intentions will guide you, but they do not chain you down, and your own experiences come into play in making interpretation and thinking about why a text is significant and meaningful to you. As long as you can support your interpretation with a text, then a reading is valid regardless of an author's intentions. There is far more going, I think, in One Hundred Years of Solitude than just a comment of Colonialism, although that clearly is one of the major themes.

There is no such thing as the correct reading, but there is such a thing as incorrect readings.

[thomas212]

There is different levels of popularity.
The first and obvious is commercial,with Dan Brown,Rowling and such.And as i read the first because i happen to be stuck with it at some stage,i didn't the segond(i hate the nerd looking magician).
The segond are the literary fashion that grabes the readers circles at times,like with Philipe Roth,Mc carthy,and this years Roberto Bolano or Richard Yates.I must say that i can't help being interest and don't pretend having exclusive original taste.No one is immune to influance and the popularity of certain authors or books tickles our curiosity.Denying it would be inverted snobery.
On the other hand i read last summer The girl with a dragon tattoo and it was frightening to find so many poeple reading it at the same time.(In France)

[JBI]

I am afraid I have to disagree, JBI. The problem with your statement about One Hundred Years of Solitude and reading literature in general is that it reifies interpretation and meaning to a single correct answer. We're back to literature as the unraveling of a puzzle. Put the pieces in the correct place and you have your meaning. Literature is far more organic, a give-and-take between artist and reader. If done correctly the text and the author's intentions will guide you, but they do not chain you down, and your own experiences come into play in making interpretation and thinking about why a text is significant and meaningful to you. As long as you can support your interpretation with a text, then a reading is valid regardless of an author's intentions. There is far more going, I think, in One Hundred Years of Solitude than just a comment of Colonialism, although that clearly is one of the major themes.

There is no such thing as the correct reading, but there is such a thing as incorrect readings.

The meaning of the text was not really what I was criticizing, but the appropriation of the text to serve a colonial aesthetic. The way I generally view the Latin-American - U.S. relationship, is similar to that of colony, or post-colony to colonist. In one sense, the solitude of the novel, the perpetual repetition and the slowing down of time, can ultimately be read as a justification for U.S. intervention within the continent. Such a reading is dangerous, but when Milton Friedman and friends go down to Argentina to give economic advice to Pinochet's economists, a certain perpetuated stereotype of Latin-America, derived from the novel justifies this sort of dangerous intervention to the minds of Americans. A book that is rather progressive in the way it thinks, eventually becomes, I would argue, to many readers, a justification of the regressive colonial viewpoints of the past.

Of course, I'm probably saying some dangerous things. In order to really delve into this, I'd probably need to go view the Oprah discussions online, and such, but to me at least, it makes a little sense. One must also remember, the perceived stereotyping of magical realist novels by American readerships because of Marquez's influence. In many ways, the novel's affect abroad went against what I would deem the mission of the text itself.


edit: http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsb...vel_synopsis/1

There's what I would call the mass-market interpretation - Oprah's own. Quite simply, it perpetuates the stereotypes I mentioned early, and decries that this book was the book to put Latin America on the literary forefront - as if Machado de Assis had never been born, or people in Latin America had just learned how to read and write (it is also interesting to note, that Latin America isn't a country).

I think, in many ways, there are right and wrong readings. I admit there is no one right reading, but there certainly are wrong, or bad, or counter-intuitive readings. If we accept that the book has a message - implanted by the author, or a theme, manipulated by the author, or ideas, developed by the author (all of which can be conscious or subconscious or incidental) than if someone goes directly against those ideas in appropriation, things can get messy.


People still think Robert Frost's Road Not Taken is about individuality, and how he took the road not taken, stating his individuality, and ended up better for it. No one realizes that the poem is rather dark and negative, yet clearly, biographically, and poetically speaking, the individuality reading is rather loose. Certainly the road not taken led to many things - his wife's death, his kids' deaths, his sons insanity, his bitterness.

Likewise, Frost's Stopping By Woods is considered by many readers a poem written as he was nearing death. They miss the whole pastoral point, notably that it was written in middle-age, not at the end of his life, and it really is imbued with a dark sense of pastoral, rather than with dying (though the pastoral vision has death in it).

There are misreadings, especially where there is irony, or a subtext. For instance, in one of my lectures last week, a person presenting on a poem, which was a parody of Smart's Jubilate Agno, missed the whole entire intertext, and, from the look my professor shot him, and her interjection of the more accurate reading, failed the presentation.

I'm sure you are aware of Richards' Practical Criticism? Well anyway, that just shows you the level of misreading that can occur from readers. Those are all students, lower that down to people who are even less experienced, and one has no idea what can come out of readings.

There is no one right answer, but there certainly are better and worse answers.

[mortalterror]

I am afraid I have to disagree, JBI. The problem with your statement about One Hundred Years of Solitude and reading literature in general is that it reifies interpretation and meaning to a single correct answer. We're back to literature as the unraveling of a puzzle. Put the pieces in the correct place and you have your meaning. Literature is far more organic, a give-and-take between artist and reader. If done correctly the text and the author's intentions will guide you, but they do not chain you down, and your own experiences come into play in making interpretation and thinking about why a text is significant and meaningful to you. As long as you can support your interpretation with a text, then a reading is valid regardless of an author's intentions. There is far more going, I think, in One Hundred Years of Solitude than just a comment of Colonialism, although that clearly is one of the major themes.

There is no such thing as the correct reading, but there is such a thing as incorrect readings.

What you say is true. There is probably no such thing as a correct reading, but there are such things as incorrect readings. That is valid and well put, but let us not stop there. I think there is still room in that maxim to imply that there are such things as privileged positions, and polyphony is no sure road to truth. A statement may be right but not necessarily informative or insightful. For instance, a lot of your reviews on Aristophanes emphasize the incidental while omitting what is primary to the text, and your technique while appropriate to a modern novel isn't so well suited to a fourth century play. I think that JBI has the right of it when he says that there are better ways to do anything, and each task deserves it's special tools.

[Quark]

As long as you can support your interpretation with a text, then a reading is valid regardless of an author's intentions. There is far more going, I think, in One Hundred Years of Solitude than just a comment of Colonialism, although that clearly is one of the major themes.

There is no such thing as the correct reading, but there is such a thing as incorrect readings.

True, and I would add to this that the issue here isn't even one of interpretation, but evaluation. It isn't a matter of what's there, but what's important and enjoyable. If I understand JCamillo, Oprah readers were reading the work for its "fantasy", and not for its post-colonial attitudes. I can't see why this is less accurate--or in JBI's words "manipulating the artistic elements of a text into fitting their interpretation"--than a post-colonialist reading. By claiming those readers fail to get it, really all you would be doing is privileging an empire-conscious reading over a genre reading. Academics routinely rank colonial perspectives as more relevant than genre concerns, but it's a matter of preference. It doesn't have anything to do with literature.

In many ways, the novel's affect abroad went against what I would deem the mission of the text itself.


edit: http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsb...vel_synopsis/1

There's what I would call the mass-market interpretation - Oprah's own. Quite simply, it perpetuates the stereotypes I mentioned early, and decries that this book was the book to put Latin America on the literary forefront - as if Machado de Assis had never been born, or people in Latin America had just learned how to read and write (it is also interesting to note, that Latin America isn't a country).

Oh, if you're arguing that the Oprah reading (OR, for short) misinterprets the post-colonial attitude of the work than I take back what I said. I thought you were saying that the concerns of academics are superior to the interests of common readers--that post-colonial readings are better than enjoyable fantasies, or that post-colonialism gets to the heart of a story better than responses to genre.

[JBI]

True, and I would add to this that the issue here isn't even one of interpretation, but evaluation. It isn't a matter of what's there, but what's important and enjoyable. If I understand JCamillo, Oprah readers were reading the work for its "fantasy", and not for its post-colonial attitudes. I can't see why this is less accurate--or in JBI's words "manipulating the artistic elements of a text into fitting their interpretation"--than a post-colonialist reading. By claiming those readers fail to get it, really all you would be doing is privileging an empire-conscious reading over a genre reading. Academics routinely rank colonial perspectives as more relevant than genre concerns, but it's a matter of preference. It doesn't have anything to do with literature.

Now we hit the hard part - the discussion of aesthetic judgment in critical theory. Personally, I think Oprah's readers read the text because Oprah said they should, but that isn't the point. What is the aesthetic? What is the significance? What does magical realism really mean? Is magical realism an aspect of fantasy, or of realism? Is it metaphorical, symbolic?

How much more potent does Borges' library become when you realize that it isn't just some make believe place. There really is no point to the make believe, unless it carries some sort of punch.

Fairytales did that by blending moral and cultural strands within their works. Magical Realists do that in many different ways, in this case, by using fantastical elements as symbols for other things.

The sort of aesthetic reading in those terms, ultimately equates to something like this: "Isn't it cool that the city isn't real that Eliot is talking about?" "It's unreal, isn't that neat?", or even better "Isn't it funny that he is planting corpses in the garden. Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous?"

There is more to literature than surface value.

Oh, if you're arguing that the Oprah reading (OR, for short) misinterprets the post-colonial attitude of the work than I take back what I said. I thought you were saying that the concerns of academics are superior to the interests of common readers--that post-colonial readings are better than enjoyable fantasies, or that post-colonialism gets to the heart of a story better than responses to genre.

Post-colonialism is a genre, as is magical realism. It is also important to note, that America is not Marquez's original audience, and the book is not an English text. Magical realism is not fantasy, in this form at least, and has more in common with realism (again in Marquez's handling) than it does with fantasy.

In terms of readings, academics are generally better readers - it's their profession after all. There are many great public readers, and many readers with interest who benefit from academic readings, but on the whole, the mass reading is generally worse. When Oprah sets herself up as an authority (well, I guess her marketers or whomever at any rate) she usurps the role of academic, or credible reader, and in doing so, provides a misreading as truth. That's what I'm against. I'm against the results of the reviewers at the New York Times, or any periodical for that matter, who abuse their role as critics to suit the agenda of publishers and their paper. They merely perpetuate this system to get books sold.

When it comes to it, I'm of the mind that good books should be read, and reviewers should support good books, and criticize bad ones (whatever that can do). And on the whole, they do somewhat of a good job and cutting down the number of bad ones significantly. But their roles are abused. In truth, I know the supercritic Linda Hutcheon is currently working on some critical work examining the uses and abuses of reviewing and reviewers, but that is still in its beta stages. On the whole though, I'm just trying to address the power mass-sales and mass-opinion have in shaping the way people buy, and see novels, and, from that, cultures.

[Quark]

First, I re-responded to your previous post. I think your argument was a little different than what I originally took it for.

Now this:

Now we hit the hard part - the discussion of aesthetic judgment in critical theory.

I don't know if it's aesthetics necessarily. I think it's simply a matter of what readers give their attention to. Scholars--I suppose that includes you and I--frequently discuss issues of empire, power, and colonization. We probably do this because academic discussions of literature often center around the societal role of a text. But, I don't see how this preoccupation really has any more truth behind it than a reading of a book as an enjoyable fantasy. Both make observations about the text. One is more relevant than another depending on what kind of reader you are, but to pretend like one is "closer" to the text would be a mistake. I got the sense that when you said people often "read Faulkner without really reading him" that you were saying that the academic reading of literature is somehow closer. I would point out, though, that many casual readers would argue the same thing of scholars. There are some famous post-colonial reading which seem to completely miss the point of the work, but are widely applauded in academia because they reflect the current preoccupations of scholars. The best known is probably Edward Said taking one sentence from Mansfield Park about a Caribbean property and turning the entire novel into a statement about colonizers. Many Oprah readers would most likely attack this on the grounds that Said isn't "really reading" Austen.

There is more to literature than surface value.

I completely agree, and I wish more would study literature seriously. I just don't think that all novels, poems, and plays should be evaluated solely on the basis of whether they're good for study.

Added:

Post-colonialism is a genre, as is magical realism.

True enough, but I'm referring to the post-colonial/subaltern philosophy that gives credit to works that approach certain ideas.

In terms of readings, academics are generally better readers - it's their profession after all.

This is right in a sense. Scholars are profession readers, but what they learn is a certain science of reading. You're a big fan of Northrop Frye, right? Remember the part in the Anatomy when he's talking about how the science of literature isn't the same as the experience of literature. I don't have the book in front of me, but I think he compares it to the study of physics with the actual natural world. What students learn from these disciplines are certain models and a certain vocabulary with which to talk about these things, but their actual existence always remains outside of the discipline. Similarly, scholarly reading reflects certain models and descriptions of reading, but it isn't the same as actual reading. I suppose a physicist would know more about what is happening on a roller-coaster--it is his profession to talk about energy and motion--but is his account of the ride really the best? He would give you a list of numbers and equations. It really wouldn't capture the thrill of the ride. An average person's account of the ride would probably help me decide if I wanted to go on the ride more than a physicist's.

[JCamilo]

I would like to point that Magic Realism is a aesthetic take, they are interessed to work with stylized concepts rather than language in the Joycean style, and most of them are quick to adhere to some idealism and doubt they can see the difference between reality and fantasy. The name was not given by Marquez or Borges.
Marquez is talking about reality, but he is doing using aesthetic elements, just like Shakespeare was doing. Obviously, it is better to see Marquez being read in America, even if it was because Oprah said so or because Isabel Allende said so, or because Americans can not just get South America as much as Europeans never got Africa...
Funny enough, I once read that Gogol told to Chekhov that he would end making people believe reality is fantasy, because his writing was so good that no one would believe it was real, and it was magical.

[mortalterror]

I think, in many ways, there are right and wrong readings. I admit there is no one right reading, but there certainly are wrong, or bad, or counter-intuitive readings. If we accept that the book has a message - implanted by the author, or a theme, manipulated by the author, or ideas, developed by the author (all of which can be conscious or subconscious or incidental) than if someone goes directly against those ideas in appropriation, things can get messy.

Agreed. A text is not a blank slate open to any interpretation. But my point is that there is another type of misreading less sinister than the the counter-intuitive and that is the junk information reading. That's where the reviewer doesn't say anything necessarily wrong, but fills up a critique with trivia, excess, and secondary issues until the main point of a text is lost in the background noise. I think that there are more important things than just not being wrong. We have to be strongly right and focused on primary concerns. Thesmophoriazusae is not about feminism any more than Huckleberry Finn is about racist homosexuals. Nowadays we have a tendency to read politics and agendas into everything. You get that post-colonialism stuff you were talking about and all that goes with it, whereas that might not be the intent of the text at all. It's not wrong but it's somewhat beside the point.

It is right that we consider a piece of literature from the point of view of it's author, just as it is right that we should consider the piece's intended audience. Furthermore, one needs to acknowledge the history and conventions a piece of work comes out of, or risk misconstruing the innate values of a text. Reading politics into a work of fiction is only wrong if that work was not meant as a political tool. The Yellow Wallpaper should be read with an agenda in mind, but creatures like Aristophanes, South Park, and the Daily Show are only marginally political. The politics are there but their primary goal is humor, and an accurate engagement with the text cannot be complete without an assessment of how they succeed or fail at their goal.

A review of Huckleberry Finn is not complete without a mention of the incident where the hucksters paint Jim blue and whether the reviewer thought it was funny or not. I think that we can remain objective while still holding personal opinions. Here and there we should punctuate our criticisms with our honest responses to a text; so long as we follow up our responses with credible explanations for why we have them. Let us not hide ourselves, by clothing our authorial voice in numerous points of view. Let us not give way to speaking in terms of agendas and other people's opinions. Let us be frank and to the point.

This is right in a sense. Scholars are profession readers, but what they learn is a certain science of reading. You're a big fan of Northrop Frye, right? Remember the part in the Anatomy when he's talking about how the science of literature isn't the same as the experience of literature. I don't have the book in front of me, but I think he compares it to the study of physics with the actual natural world. What students learn from these disciplines are certain models and a certain vocabulary with which to talk about these things, but their actual existence always remains outside of the discipline. Similarly, scholarly reading reflects certain models and descriptions of reading, but it isn't the same as actual reading. I suppose a physicist would know more about what is happening on a roller-coaster--it is his profession to talk about energy and motion--but is his account of the ride really the best? He would give you a list of numbers and equations. It really wouldn't capture the thrill of the ride. An average person's account of the ride would probably help me decide if I wanted to go on the ride more than a physicist's.

That's a good point. We should not loose track of criticism as a literary text in it's own right with it's own authorial intent and target audience. There are different types of criticisms by different types of critics directed at various audiences for diverse goals. Instead of thinking of a book from the metaphorical point of view of a rollercoaster, I like to use my own metaphor of an automobile. Interpretations of my automobile may come from drivers, engineers, mechanics, and outside observers each with different analytical tools and purposes in mind.

If I want to know how it handles, what the seats are like, or if it gets good gas mileage I can ask a driver. If I want to know how it's put together, how it runs, I can ask the mechanic. Details like color and the paintjob are tangential to one, leather seats, air conditioning, and cd player are incidental to the other. When we seek knowledge it is best to frame the purpose to which we would put that knowledge in mind beforehand.