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ISBN Print: 9783847113232 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737013239
reckonwiththepast.AlthoughThornhill tellshisdaughterto“never lookback”,
Sarah chooses to bear witness, accept, and confess. The novel resonates with
contemporarydebatesconcerningracerelationsandthemoral legitimacyof the
modernAustraliannationthroughpositioningof itscentralprotagonist.Itmight
alsobesaidthatSarahThornhill isabookwell-suitedtobookclubs.Plot-driven,
historical family romance featuring a ‘secret’history, a smart and independent
womanprotagonist,withanopenendingthat leavesthereaderwiththepromise
of moral redemption, Sarah Thornhill is the kind of storytelling that actively
encourages thereader to identifywithcharactersandscenarios. It isalsoabook
that reflects the contemporary zeitgeist for traumanarrative.9
In2013/14,weconductedthreefocusgroupswithbookclubsinAustralia: two
inthe largesoutherncityofMelbourne,Victoria, andathird inasmall regional
town in Tasmania. The groups were recruited through notices placed in the
regularnewsletterof theCollegeAdultEducation(CAE)BookClubprogram(the
largest—and ostensibly the oldest—book club program in Australia), and
through thedatabaseofbookclubs thatwehavebeendeveloping since2011. In
total,26people(all exceptonewerewomen)participated inthe focusgroups. In
Melbourne, the first grouphad fivemembersandthesecond12; theTasmanian
group hadnine participants.Mostmemberswere in theirmiddle age (14 par-
ticipantswere 51–60 years old).Members of theMelbourne groupsweremore
highly educated, all with auniversity degree, andninewith apostgraduate de-
gree.TheTasmaniangrouphad fourmemberswithhighschoolattainmentand
five with a degree.We have reported elsewhere on the protocols of our focus
groups.10 In brief, the groups included Sarah Thornhill within their reading
schedule.When the groupmet todiscuss thebook,weaudio-visually recorded
themeeting(DG)andimmediatelyfollowingweconductedthefocusgroup(FG).
Thetranscripts fromall threesessionswere thenanalyzedusingNVivosoftware
and thematic content analysis. From this analysis, two themes emerged in the
groups’ readings of Sarah Thornhill—authenticity and self-reflexivity—that
reflect how readers used the text to engagewith themoral questions that this
bookexplores.
Considerations of authenticity included readers’ scrutiny of whether char-
acters and their actionswere believable in the context of the novel’s historical
period, andwhether or not the plotwas plausible. Readers’ reflections onhis-
torical facts and fictions held in tension both a critique of truth claims, and a
willingness to accept the provisional nature of such knowledge. Our readers
recognized that truth claims areoften complex and incomplete. They accepted
thestoryas ‘astory’(fiction),yetalsoimaginedandproposedtentativeaccounts
9 SeeWhitehead2004;Fassin/Rechtman2009.
10 SeeClarke/Nolan2014;Nolan/Clarke2014.
ReadingFiction,TalkingReconciliation 235
Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0
Über Bücher reden
Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Title
- Über Bücher reden
- Subtitle
- Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Author
- Doris Moser
- Editor
- Claudia Dürr
- Publisher
- V&R unipress
- Date
- 2021
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-7370-1323-9
- Size
- 15.5 x 23.2 cm
- Pages
- 262
- Category
- Lehrbücher