GR Lesen Beobachten

[Otto]

Bruno Arich-Gerz
Lesen - Beobachten
Modell einer Wirkungsästhetik mit Thomas Pynchons »Gravity's Rainbow«
2001,  178 Seiten, br.
29,00 EUR(D)  /  51,50 SFR
ISBN: 3-87940-758-4

Lesen- Beobachten undertakes a revision of the reader response debates of
the seventies and early eighties. It takes into consideration the
poststructuralist charges against any all too universalistic approaches to
the topic of reader theory, yet maintains a decidedly hermeneutic
perspective.

Methodically, it relies on Niklas Luhmann's observer theory which it
heuristically equates with Wolfgang Iser's conceptualization of the reading
act. As a test ground for the feasibility of the resulting reading model
serve Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow and (the history of) its
criticism. The as yet unprecedented text analysis of the reader subtext of
Pynchon's book deliberately differs from, and proves incommensurate with,
the prevalent line of Pynchon criticism. This echoes the most outstanding
quality of the novel: the instance of a "progressive knotting into", or
incessant proliferation of paradoxes. Moreover, the diagnosis of utter
incommensurability reflects the overall state of affairs in reader response
criticism itself which due to its controversial course (here highlighted by
two of its major representatives, Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish) and to the
general problematic of reading (and subsequently writing about) the act of
reading has throughout the last two decades turned into a Sleeping Beauty.
At this point the method borrowed from Luhmann re-enters the stage since the
concept of the "second order observer" offers a constructivist mode of
(self-) reflecting on the dilemmata mentioned. Ultimately, the study
explicitly addresses and encourages its own reader-observer to interprete
its course and content, its inbuilt paradoxes and the intended
irreconcilabilities with present-day Pynchon critics.
http://www.uvk.de/uvkkultur.asp?WKorbUID=109883917&start=neu3

with pdf of the introduction (German only)

Otto