Reading Theory Now: An ABC of Good Reading with J. Hillis Miller

Alan Johnson
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Abstract

Eamonn Dunne, Reading Theory Now: An ABC of Good Reading with J. Hillis Miller (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013)When the subject of a study himself declares, as J. Hillis Miller does of Eamonn Dunne's book (in the Preface), that it is 'the best introduction I know to my work', it gets our attention. Dunne's book is indeed a useful, clearly written and thoroughly informed entry point into the astonishing range and acuity of Miller's many publications, from 1958's Charles Dickens: The World of his Novels to 2012's Reading for Our Time: Adam Bede and Middlemarch Revisited. I know this because Dunne provides an excellent annotated bibliography of Miller's 'major works' at the end of this book. Before this, as his title suggests, Dunne has, in the manner of a classic primer, used the alphabet as a practical way of structuring his 'provisional, even speculative foray into' Miller's works. Dunne cleverly uses Miller's own thread metaphor to characterize this working-through of both Miller's meditations on reading and the maze of narrative itself.Dunne tells us at the outset that 'what has most interested me about Miller's work ... is [his] attention to the event and act of reading', specifically the ways in which narratives 'have an uncanny way of escaping cognition and will, given half a chance, always exceed a reader's expectations' (xviii). Miller's (post)structuralist readings attest to his keen interest in the uncanny ways in which texts are spatial and temporal - on the page, in the moment of reading - and yet, at the same time, exist in a kind of Platonic, ever-changing, 'virtual' world of words and stories. Dunne bears this out nicely in his A to Z entries. This does not mean that Dunne assumes Miller's work is programmatic, only that this approach is a good as any other possible one.The first entry, 'A before B - of course ... ', exemplifies this. Quoting from Miller's 1999 book Reading Narrative (whose abbreviation Dunne has listed, along with 21 other Miller titles, at the outset), Dunne writes: "'Anacoluthon doubles the story line and so makes the story probably a lie" (RN, 149).' In what proves to be characteristic, Dunne goes on to unpack the quotation in brisk and well-illustrated fashion. The line tells us, writes Dunne, 'that storylines are assembled and dismembered by the implicit demand made on each reader to remember the way at all times, to follow the line back and forth from the clue ... to the center of the labyrinth' (1). But doing so is bound to include some 'wandering' from what the text is asking of us. The word anacoluthon - literally, an ungrammatical, nonsensical sequence - here means 'an abrupt breach in the line', such as Proust's habit of switching pronouns mid-sentence to call our attention to the fictionality of all narratives, including ones we think are based on true memory. By drawing on a wealth of literary examples, Miller shows us how storytelling, which after all constitutes memory, rests at the juncture of Tying and remembrance' (3). Since storytelling is both a retrospective act and, as Dunne emphasizes in his book title, the 'now' of active reading, we miss the point if we ask that a text be factual (such as the controversies over so-called lies in certain autobiographies). The trick is, instead, to detect the degree of trust we can (or are willing to) place in our authorial host. This first entry displays Dunne's own (acknowledged) editorialized prerogatives, for he sets out here some of Miller's most significant concerns. …
《当下阅读理论:良好阅读的ABC》,作者:j·希利斯·米勒
埃蒙·邓恩,《当下阅读理论:与j·希利斯·米勒一起学习良好阅读的ABC》(纽约:布卢姆斯伯里出版社,2013年)。当一项研究的对象自己宣称,就像j·希利斯·米勒在埃蒙·邓恩的书的序言中所说的那样,这是“我所知道的对我的工作的最好介绍”,它就会引起我们的注意。从1958年的《查尔斯·狄更斯:他的小说世界》到2012年的《我们这个时代的阅读:重新审视亚当·比德和米德尔马契》,邓恩的书确实是一本有用的、文笔清晰、信息全面的入门读物。我之所以知道这一点,是因为邓恩在本书末尾提供了米勒“主要作品”的优秀注释参考书目。在此之前,正如他的书名所示,邓恩以经典入门的方式,用字母表作为一种实用的方式来组织他对米勒作品的“临时的,甚至是推测性的探索”。邓恩巧妙地使用米勒自己的线索隐喻来描述米勒对阅读的思考和叙事本身的迷宫。邓恩一开始就告诉我们,“米勒的作品最让我感兴趣的是……[他]关注阅读的事件和行动”,专门叙述的方式”有一种不可思议的方式逃离的认知和意愿,只要有一点机会,总是超过一个读者的期望”(十八)。米勒(post)的结构主义读数证明他浓厚的兴趣文本被时空的不可思议的方式——在页面上,在阅读的时候,然而,与此同时,存在于一种柏拉图式的,不断变化的,“虚拟世界的语言和故事。邓恩在他的A到Z条目中很好地证明了这一点。这并不意味着Dunne认为Miller的工作是程序化的,只是这种方法和其他方法一样好。第一项,“A在B之前——当然……”,就是例证。引用米勒1999年出版的书《阅读叙事》(在开头,邓恩列出了米勒其他21本书的缩写),邓恩写道:“阿纳科鲁顿把故事线翻了一倍,所以这个故事很可能是一个谎言。”邓恩继续以轻快、生动的方式解读这段引文,这被证明是他的特色。邓恩写道,这句台词告诉我们,“故事情节是由一种隐含的要求组成的,即每个读者都要时刻记住前进的方向,从线索出发,前后跟着台词走……(1)。但这样做必然会使我们对文本所要求的内容产生一些“偏离”。anacoluthon这个词——字面意思是一个不合语法、毫无意义的序列——在这里的意思是“突然中断”,比如普鲁斯特在句子中间切换代词的习惯,以提醒我们注意所有叙事的虚构性,包括我们认为基于真实记忆的故事。通过借鉴丰富的文学实例,米勒向我们展示了故事讲述,它毕竟构成了记忆,是如何在“连接”和“记忆”的结合点上休整的(3)。因为故事讲述既是一种回顾行为,也是邓恩在书名中强调的积极阅读的“现在”,如果我们要求文本是事实的(比如对某些自传中所谓谎言的争议),我们就会错过重点。相反,诀窍在于检测我们能够(或愿意)对作者主人的信任程度。第一个条目显示了邓恩自己(公认的)编辑特权,因为他在这里列出了米勒最重要的一些问题。...
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