Wolfgang Iser Quotes

This is why, when we have been particularly impressed by a book, we feel the need to talk about it; we do not want to get away from it by talking about it—we simply want to understand more clearly what it is in which we have been entangled. We have undergone an experience, and now we want to know consciously what we have experienced. Perhaps this is the prime usefulness of literary criticism—it helps to make conscious those aspects of the text which would otherwise remain concealed in the subconscious; it satisfies (or helps to satisfy) our desire to talk about what we have read.

When, for instance, we say that a literary work is good or bad, we are making a value judgment (...) Objective evidence for subjective preferences does not makes the value judgment itself objective, but merely objectifies the preference.

As the German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser wrote, 'with reading there is no face-to face situation'; we have the luxury of getting rid of our faces too. Wed don't have to be ourselves, with all the logistical, financial and emotional complications that our lives entail. We don't really have to be anyone at all. And while we might never lose ourselves completely because we are, after all, the organism that brings the story to life at the moment, we can unclasp quite a lot of the inhibitions and worries that buckle us into who we are. Paradoxically, at the same time as being able to be more self indulgent by escaping into a world where no one can reasonably expect us to do anything, we have the luxury of putting ourselves and our needs, wants, and fears aside for a while; by being more selfish in a book we become less self-ish.