Bokelskere.no

Reading, after all, is an act of the reader. And it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Literature is written in the world, by people who are tied to other people. We read in the world, each of us situated in our own webs of social and material relationships. Reading is itself a social activity. Not only because we enter into a relationship with another (imagined) person - the writer - when we read. Not only because, although we read alone, we read the same texts as others 'out there'. But also because we bring our own social situations with us into our readings. And because, in our reading, we encounter the rich social complexity that produced the text. When we read, we encounter society and complexity in the language itself. After all, language is made by people (if not by individuals).