Page - 232 - in Über Bücher reden - Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften

© 2021 V&R unipress, Brill Deutschland GmbH ISBN Print: 9783847113232 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737013239 tenant,andSarahThornhill;KimScott’sThatDeadmanDanceandTaboo,Gail Jones’Sorry,andAlexMiller’sJourneytotheStoneCountryandTheLandscapeof Farewell.Thesenovels tell stories thatareexplicitlyconcernedwithcolonialand postcolonial violence, and employ scenarios andnarrative techniques that res- onate with contemporary concerns about race politics and reconciliation. Moreover, theyareframedbyparatextualelementsthatreferencereconciliation. Manyhaveappearedamongthewinners,orontheshortor longlists,ofnational literaryprizes includingtheMilesFranklinAward,andhaveoftenincitedpublic debate. KateGrenville’snovelshavemade interestingcase studiesof thewayreaders usebookclubstoaddressthedemandsofreconciliationinAustralia.Grenville’s The SecretRiverwas attackedby anumberof critics andacademics. Somehis- torians and literary criticspositioned thenovel as a “sorry text” that appeals to ordinaryreadersbecause itassuageswhiteguilt.2TheSecretRiver, in theeyesof its detractors, is complicit with the very ideologies that it ostensibly writes against. Our investigationswith book clubs about their reception of this novel havebeenmotivated in largepart as a response to these critical anxieties. We undertook a study with five book clubs, recording their conversations aboutTheSecretRiverandconductingfocusgroupdiscussionsafterward.Inour focus groups, we observed a range of reading positions adopted. While the concerns of the novel’s detractors were sometimes confirmed; inmany cases, theywere not. Readers’ responseswere rarely simple, and the dynamics of the groupdiscussionsproducedvarious,andat timeshighlyambivalent, readingsof thenovel. Since then,MaggieNolanhasexamined the receptionofothernovels suchasScott’sThatDeadmanDance,andMiller’sTheLandscapeof Farewell.3In so doing, we have explored how book club readers grapple with the power of fictiontorepresentcontestedhistoriesandtoaddressthechallengesoffindinga just rapprochementbetween Indigenousandnon-IndigenousAustralians. Thework thatwe have undertaken is informed by research on reading as a social practice.Our research focuseson “howreadersbeyond theacademy talk about, use andmake sense” of literary texts.4 Such a perspective has a long tradition5yetlargelyrunscontratodominanttrendsinliterarystudies.Toooften the study of literary reception is focused on the hermeneutic practices of pro- fessional literaryscholarsandtheworktheyundertake inscholarlypublications and classrooms; or on socio-cultural formations that underpin the tastes and 2 SeeWeaver-Hightower2010.SeealsoNolan/Clarke2011;Clarke/Nolan2014;Nolan/ Clarke2014. 3 Nolan2016;Nolan2020. 4 Procter And Benwell 2014, p. 1; See also, Chabot Davis 2014; Fuller Sedo 2013; Hartley/Turvey2004;Long2003. 5 See, for instance,Richards1929. MaggieNolan/RobertClarke /RebekahBrown232 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0