Life & Work: Writers, Readers, and the Conversations Between Them

by Tim Parks,
Tulsa World, October 9, 2016

These days, academic literary critics assert that texts are “autonomous.” They construe and deconstruct them through close readings of the words on the page. They disdain “the biographical fallacy,” the assumption that the beliefs and behavior of a writer illuminates his or her novel. And they evince little interest in the personal response of ordinary readers.