Seite - 234 - in Über Bücher reden - Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
Bild der Seite - 234 -
Text der Seite - 234 -
© 2021 V&R unipress, Brill Deutschland GmbH
ISBN Print: 9783847113232 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737013239
Indeed, conversation is key to understanding vernacular criticism.As Long
explains:
[P]articipants in book groups create a conversation that begins with the book each
womanhas readbutmovesbeyond thebook to include thepersonal connectionsand
meanings each has found in the book, and the new connectionswith the book, with
innerexperience,andwiththeperspectivesof theotherparticipantsthatemergewithin
the discussion… It is as if the discussion is a lens that reveals the books under dis-
cussion and the inner lives of coparticipants and, through this process, allowspartic-
ipants to reflectbackontheirowninterior livesaswell. In theseconversations,people
canusebooksandeachother’s responses tobooks topromote insightandempathy in
an integrative process of collective self-reflection. In that sense, reading group dis-
cussions perform creative cultural work, for they enable participants to articulate or
evendiscoverwho theyare: their values, their aspirations, and their stance toward the
dilemmasof theirworlds.8
Inpresenting theseoutlinesof vernacularcriticism,weareconsciousof therisk
ofdrawing toogross acontrastwithacademic criticism.Vernacular criticism is
not being positioned here as academic criticism’s ‘other’. Moreover, we are
consciousofourowncriticalpredilectionsandcarefulnot toprojectourbiases
shapedastheyarebypost-structuralism, feminism,andpostcolonialism.Wedo
notwish tovalorize readinggroups as the idealized sitesof ‘hospitable’, ‘repar-
ative’, ‘implicated’,or ‘transgressive’readingpractices;ofahermeneuticsof trust
ratherthanofsuspicion.Butwedowanttoconsiderhowbookclubconversations
allude to anumber of important concepts that are of significance to academic
literary critics.Bywayof example,wenowturn toourworkonthe receptionof
KateGrenville’snovelSarahThornhill.
Sarah Thornhill (2011) is the sequel to Kate Grenville’s controversial 2005
historical novel, The Secret River. In this third novel in Grenville’s “colonial
trilogy,” the eponymous Sarah Thornhill is the youngest daughter of William
Thornhill, the complex central protagonist of The SecretRiver: abook that be-
camethefocusofconsiderabledebateaboutthewritingofhistoryandofreaders’
capacity to differentiate history and fiction. The sequel is a different kind of
novel,writtenintheaftermathofwhatwasanacrimoniouspublicdebate.Atfirst
glance a colonial interracial romance story, the novel is also concerned with
Sarah’sgrowingrealizationofher father’sculpability inamassacreof theDarug
people, of which Sarah is an unwitting beneficiary, and Sarah’s need tomake
peace with her brothers’Maori relatives for the death of her niece. While
Grenvilleestablishesaconventionalnarrativeframe(inthiscase,tragichistorical
romance), she soondeparts fromthis to exploremore contemporary concerns,
includingwhiteAustralianguilt and thecapacityofnon-Indigenous subjects to
8 Long2003, pp. 144–45. MaggieNolan/RobertClarke
/RebekahBrown234
Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0
Über Bücher reden
Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Titel
- Über Bücher reden
- Untertitel
- Literaturrezeption in Lesegemeinschaften
- Autor
- Doris Moser
- Herausgeber
- Claudia Dürr
- Verlag
- V&R unipress
- Datum
- 2021
- Sprache
- deutsch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-7370-1323-9
- Abmessungen
- 15.5 x 23.2 cm
- Seiten
- 262
- Kategorie
- Lehrbücher