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Topographies (review)

Topographies (review) THE COMPAKATIST cultural ("hegemonic") tradition(s). Transformative strategies and re-visioning postures associated witii critical rereading are in fact mentioned by many contributors, but the collection fails to describe rereading either as a conscious, culturally stimulated activity or as a natural, inevitable outgrowth ofdie continuing reading process. It merely suggests that "reading as rereading opens up a temporal space of reading, an irreducible difference in the time that we take to read" (14). Also puzzling is the editor's decision to include Maurice Blanchot's "Reading." The essay is apparently meant for those readers who cannot find their critical niche in either direction emphasized by Bennett: that readers are the product of historical/social concerns, or mat even as individuals they are multiple. Blanchot holds that reading, for readers, is the reverse of finding an identity, that it is in fact, a "dissolution ofdie . . . sense ofself" (188), a position that undermines everydiing this collection has tried to establish concerning the interactive, transformative aspects of reading as a conscious act. His theory robs text and reader of cultural context, presenting each as an entity "torn from its place" (190). (Georges Poulet, whose "criticism of identification" encourages readers to identify with the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Comparatist University of North Carolina Press

Topographies (review)

Berindeanu, Florin.
The Comparatist , Volume 21 (1) – Oct 3, 1997
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University of North Carolina Press
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Copyright © the Southern Comparative Literature Association.
ISSN
1559-0887
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Abstract

THE COMPAKATIST cultural ("hegemonic") tradition(s). Transformative strategies and re-visioning postures associated witii critical rereading are in fact mentioned by many contributors, but the collection fails to describe rereading either as a conscious, culturally stimulated activity or as a natural, inevitable outgrowth ofdie continuing reading process. It merely suggests that "reading as rereading opens up a temporal space of reading, an irreducible difference in the time that we take to read" (14). Also puzzling is the editor's decision to include Maurice Blanchot's "Reading." The essay is apparently meant for those readers who cannot find their critical niche in either direction emphasized by Bennett: that readers are the product of historical/social concerns, or mat even as individuals they are multiple. Blanchot holds that reading, for readers, is the reverse of finding an identity, that it is in fact, a "dissolution ofdie . . . sense ofself" (188), a position that undermines everydiing this collection has tried to establish concerning the interactive, transformative aspects of reading as a conscious act. His theory robs text and reader of cultural context, presenting each as an entity "torn from its place" (190). (Georges Poulet, whose "criticism of identification" encourages readers to identify with the

Journal

The Comparatist – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Oct 3, 1997

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