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Introduction The Author-Reader Contract Wordsworth could startle his readers by writing about a leech-gatherer; how could such a person or activity qualify for aesthetic appreciation? Faulkner trampled even more forcefully on reader expectations when The Sound and the Fury commenced with an idiot’s version of events. Both works are now canonical. The same conversion will happen for many of the novels discussed in this book, but they resist being naturalized into tradition . They not only attack the literary expectations specific to their time but also break a very old contract between reader and author, and do so in ways that demand new motives for reading. Horace opined that poetry, and by extension all fiction, is properly dulce (entertaining) and utile (useful, informative), and his formulation has stood the test of two millennia.1 Why should we spend our free time reading if we get neither pleasure nor useful information or insight? Other elements that help a work fit into the literary tradition are its relative emphases on action, character, or idea (elements identified by Aristotle). Genre, likewise , makes a new work assimilable. Action or interesting characters offer 2 Introduction entertainment, while idea introduces us to new ways of thinking. Genre sanctions particular twists and turns of plot. Expectations adhere to each genre, and gratifying those expectations is one of the ways that fiction gives us a sense of meaning. For a surprising number of recent American novels, this long-standing author-reader contract has been broken. Modernist fiction ostensibly rejected that author-reader relationship, yet initial bafflement or indignation caused by Joyce, Faulkner, and others faded because our readerly drive to solve puzzles succeeded. In general, if not always in each particular work, what initially seemed like jagged pieces proved to fit into a relatively coherent and therefore satisfying picture. The authors of the more aggressive novels considered here not only refuse to give us a coherent picture but also tend to abandon the generic patterns of plot and closure, and thus deny us relief and enjoyment. Why should we keep reading when novelists strive to undermine our values, push gross unpleasantness in our face, omit connectives and explanations that would help us understand, reduce characters to placeholders, and fail to come to any resolution? These authors presumably know that they endanger their chances of attracting any readership beyond a coterie of like-minded fans, so what alternative inducements are they offering a larger audience to keep reading? Let’s look at it from the audience perspective : If reading is not to be pure misery, what can readers do to make themselves more receptive? Before we look at a range of recent novels that have abrogated the traditional contract, consider briefly the Horatian basis of that relationship. His sweetness refers to the elements in the reading experience that give pleasure . Pleasure mostly involves reinforcing values that make us feel good about ourselves. Entertainment is another word used for what gives pleasure , but entertainment tends to be passive, even escapist. Entertainment helps us formulate wishes and gratify them vicariously. Pleasure includes that gratification, but it can also involve active participation from the readers . Pleasure derives from the mental activities of the reader while reading, from plot- or content-oriented features, from overall aesthetics, and from the engaging side of instruction, as opposed to straight preaching. Pleasure deriving from active reading takes at least two forms. One comes from readers exercising their skills of interpretation, and feeling that they have been successful with a particular work. This kind of pleasure The Author-Reader Contract 3 can be aesthetic and psychological. Peter J. Rabinowitz sees both in the process by which the actual reader adapts enough to the text to become more like the author’s posited reader.2 Susan L. Feagin argues that pleasure comes from exercising one’s ability to appreciate the text.3 Responding appropriately to a work of art is not something that everyone has the ability to do for every aesthetic creation. When a novel leaves us cold, it may have failed us, but we may also have failed to open ourselves in the right fashion. We feel good about ourselves when we do appreciate something, particularly when what it offers is neither easy to like nor obvious. The challenge posed by fiction that undermines our assumptions can repay highly skilled readers with pleasure, but that reward may be out of reach for much of the reading public. Lisa Zunshine and Norman N. Holland feel...

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