'The starting-point for this study is Roland Barthes's theoretical aphorism that the reader is properly the "writer" or "producer" of his text.' By the end, it appears that the original author has changed places and become 'the reader of his text', while the critics go on writing it for him. And not necessarily a better reader than you or I or Ms Kappeler: 'there is nothing in [James's] prefaces apart from some trivial biographical data of little interest, that we as readers should not be able to trace on our own.'

LRB 5 February 1981 | PDF Download