Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I don't think it's ever a case that the reader "must" do anything. It is up to the author to elicit the reader's cooperation and participation in revealing the story. (Readers take a more active role in story telling than, say, film-viewers.) But, it doesn't matter how good the author is, the result is never 100% effective.
Authors that do not follow genre-convention (eg: "Literary" authors) take a risk. They ask the readers to take a journey that is not familiar, that the reader may well misinterpret. Once the cooperation goes astray it becomes like a three-legged race where the pair get tangled up, and no one is going anywhere. It's no one's fault, necessarily*, it's just the way it sometimes turns out - a consequence of the risk taken.
(* Yes, there are inadequate authors and there are lazy readers, but in cases like we see here I think we can discount these as explanations - there is ample evidence that neither is true.)
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Perhaps "must" was not a good choice of word. I actually agree with you. As has been discussed before, we all have different levels to which we are able to suspend our disbelief. Personally I was able to suspend my disbelief. Others of course, as you say, will not.
Personally I don't regard taking a risk as a hallmark or distinguishing characteristic of literary fiction. In particular I think the only risk that the author took with this book was including any element of science fiction at all. The reason why I did not particularly like it is that it did in fact follow some of the main conventions associated with literary fiction which I am not enamoured of. I will be interested to see whether Cat Lady was able to bring herself to try the book and if so whether she finished it. Her comments on this aspect given her attitude to anything Science Fiction would be interesting.