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Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics, and Culture in the Short Story
by Susan Lohafer

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2345758.Reading_for_Storyness_Preclosure_Theory_Empirical_Poetics_and_Culture_in_the_Short_Story?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics, and Culture in the Short Story" border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41B76EZQCCL._SL160_.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2345758.Reading_for_Storyness_Preclosure_Theory_Empirical_Poetics_and_Culture_in_the_Short_Story?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics, and Culture in the Short Story</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/342226.Susan_Lohafer">Susan Lohafer</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/33071910?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars It was only when I was returning this book to the library that I noticed the similarity to Peter Brooks' somewhat more famous _Reading for the Plot_. I think I missed the link because this book is so strange, at least to me: everyone has their blind spots, and those literary critics like Lohafer who look to cognitive science to develop models for the way we process literature are in that blind spot for me.
 
 Which isn't to say that I didn't find this fascinating. First, a note on process: Lohafer reads for "preclosure," which means that she asks her readers to identify for her those places where a story could stop, though it doesn't.
 
 The result is one large claim and a couple smaller, workable strategies: first, the big insight she offers is that the short story actually contains several small stories, of recognizable genres-- that the short story, despite its brevity, is composed of alternating other stories, elements of larger cultural scripts, and it is the combination and oscillation between these scripts that characterize the story.
 
 I like this conclusion, I think, for the light it shines of what makes stories worth reading, and as a story writer, it helps me to think about ending in my own work. The long term results are obviously too far off to see.
 
 But the strategy, a kind of a blanket work as it is, lets Lohafer find some really interesting ways into otherwise flat stories, to engage what the stories might be doing. In some ways, of course, this is a cheat-- to say that Chopin's story isn't really sentimental, for example, because she pre-closed it on a non-sentimental end doesn't change the fact that the actual and authorized end is sentimental. But I think that there's something to be said, as well, for Lohafer's recognition of the interesting things that happen on the way to real closure.
 
 She's a good and careful reader, and she wants to turn our attention back to the text and the reader, and there's nothing wrong with that, even if her way of doing that is new to me. 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/556887?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Matt's review
rating:

status: Read in September, 2008

It was only when I was returning this book to the library that I noticed the similarity to Peter Brooks' somewhat more famous _Reading for the Plot_. I think I missed the link because this book is so strange, at least to me: everyone has their blind spots, and those literary critics like Lohafer who look to cognitive science to develop models for the way we process literature are in that blind spot for me.

Which isn't to say that I didn't find this fascinating. First, a note on process: Lohafer reads for "preclosure," which means that she asks her readers to identify for her those places where a story could stop, though it doesn't.

The result is one large claim and a couple smaller, workable strategies: first, the big insight she offers is that the short story actually contains several small stories, of recognizable genres-- that the short story, despite its brevity, is composed of alternating other stories, elements of larger cultural scripts, and it is the combination...more It was only when I was returning this book to the library that I noticed the similarity to Peter Brooks' somewhat more famous _Reading for the Plot_. I think I missed the link because this book is so strange, at least to me: everyone has their blind spots, and those literary critics like Lohafer who look to cognitive science to develop models for the way we process literature are in that blind spot for me.

Which isn't to say that I didn't find this fascinating. First, a note on process: Lohafer reads for "preclosure," which means that she asks her readers to identify for her those places where a story could stop, though it doesn't.

The result is one large claim and a couple smaller, workable strategies: first, the big insight she offers is that the short story actually contains several small stories, of recognizable genres-- that the short story, despite its brevity, is composed of alternating other stories, elements of larger cultural scripts, and it is the combination and oscillation between these scripts that characterize the story.

I like this conclusion, I think, for the light it shines of what makes stories worth reading, and as a story writer, it helps me to think about ending in my own work. The long term results are obviously too far off to see.

But the strategy, a kind of a blanket work as it is, lets Lohafer find some really interesting ways into otherwise flat stories, to engage what the stories might be doing. In some ways, of course, this is a cheat-- to say that Chopin's story isn't really sentimental, for example, because she pre-closed it on a non-sentimental end doesn't change the fact that the actual and authorized end is sentimental. But I think that there's something to be said, as well, for Lohafer's recognition of the interesting things that happen on the way to real closure.

She's a good and careful reader, and she wants to turn our attention back to the text and the reader, and there's nothing wrong with that, even if her way of doing that is new to me. ...less

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