How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form

by Thomas C. Foster

A novel without readers is still a novel. It has meaning, since it has had at least one reader, the person who wrote it. Its range of meanings, however, is quite limited. Add readers, add meanings. Anyone who has ever taught literature knows this. Book groups know it, too, whether the individual members have considered it or not. If a novel could only have the meaning that the author had imprinted on it, then all readers would passively accept that meaning, or as much of it as they could process. There would be no need for literature classes or discussion groups beyond simple remediation: for those of you who missed the meaning, here’s what you weren’t clever enough to grasp. That is sometimes the view of beginning literature students. They will come to class and ask, in so many words, “But what does it mean?” as if it can only mean one thing or as if my reading is the only authorized version of the text.