J. Hillis Miller is UCI Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author, most recently, of Black Holes (which was published with J. Hillis Miller; or, Boustrophedonic Reading by Manuel Asensi) (Stanford, 1999)
Published in 2002, this second-hand Routledge paperback in the Thinking in Action series was a delight at first sight to me due to its smart cover design, reader-friendly fonts and reasonable price (approx. US$5.40). I've never read Prof. J. Hillis Miller before; however, I think he has immensely contributed to the academia as well as the general readers via this book written for those keen on literature probably with a little fear since they and my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friends still enjoy exploring into their reading world, just to chew and taste various categories of one of the great literary legacies to humankind in the name of literature.
As an overview, the following chapters and titles would help you see its scope before reading: 1) What is Literature? 2) Literature as Virtual Reality, 3) The Secret of Literature, 4) Why Read Literature? 5) How to Read Literature, 6) How to Read Comparatively, or Playing the Mug's Game. So we can see the titles strategically focus on three question words: What, Why and How in Chapters 1, 4, 5 and 6 respectively while Chapters 2 and 3 are topic titles in which we can probe by means of subtopics intermingled with few query topics.
Under the topic of 'Literature as a Certain Use of Words' in Chapter 1, I found this part on Sartre and Franz Kafka inspiringly informative:
... Sartre meant by this that the words of a literary work do not transcend themselves toward the phenomenal things to which they refer. The whole power of literature is there in the simplest word or sentence used in this fictitious way.
Franz Kafka testified to this power. He said that the entire potentiality of literature to create a world out of words is there in a sentence like, "He opened the window." Kafka's first great masterpiece, "The Judgment," uses that power at the end of its first paragraph. There the protagonist, Georg Bendemann, is shown sitting "with one elbow propped on his desk ... looking out the window at the river, the bridge, and the hills on the farther bank with their tender green." ... (pp. 16-17)
Appropriately taken as a concise text or reference, this book might more or less have intimidated some general readers; however, I think the author has written as systematically and succinctly as possible for the sake of accessible understanding, further application as well as deepening studies. So this extract from Chapter 2 would allow you to have a glimpse of such an example of his writing:
For me the opening sentences of literary works have special force. They are "Open Sesames" unlocking the door to that particular work's fictive realm. All it takes is a few words, and I become a believer, a seer. I become the fascinated witness of a new virtual reality. More accurately, I become a disembodied observer within the reality. "There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs/And islands of Winander!" does it for me with Wordsworth's "The Boy of Winander." "Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself," does it for me with Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. ... "I struck the board and cried, 'No more,'" does it for me with George Herbert's "The Collar." (p. 24)
Briefly I would like to say something on Chapter 5 How to Read Literature so that interested readers could see its scope and some ways in reading literature works like fiction they prefer. According to the author, he has suggested the aporia of reading covering two ways of reading, that is, reading as Schwarmerei - "a matter of giving one's whole mind, heart, feelings, and imagination without reservation, ..., on the basis of the words" (p. 118) and good reading is slow reading - having two forms on rhetorical reading and critical reading. (p. 122)
In essence, this book is highly recommended to anyone keen on the basis of studying literature that, essentially, we cannot help avoiding reading its works in printed or digital forms as assigned for course requirements or as something to read at will. This would not disappoint us, I hope, for its narrative expertise with some inspiring ideas that would guide us for more insights and further studies.
Miller edebi metinler i?in iki tarz okumadan bahsediyor: allegro ve lento. ?lki, metnin etkilerine a??k kalarak hayran bir ?ekilde okumak; b?ylelikle yarat?lan d¨¹nyaya d¨¹?sel bir yolculuk yap?labilir. Lento ise yava? okumak, yani ele?tirel ve ku?kucu bir yakla??mla, ad?m ad?m. Miller bu iki tarz?n ayn? anda yap?lamad???n? iddia ediyor ve edebi okuman?n as?l ??kmaz? bu: hayranl?kla okunmad???nda edebi s?z¨¹n tesirleri hissedilmemi?, dokunmam?? oluyor; ele?tirel okunmad???ndaysa metin gizemden ar?nmadan bize bir bilgi sunmuyor.
Miller'?n bu kitaptaki ?ne ??kan bir di?er fikri ise, edebiyat?n bir d¨¹nya m? icat etti?i (Aristoteles) yoksa halihaz?rda varolan bir d¨¹nyada ke?if mi yapt??? (Platon) tart??mas?nda al?nan tutumun edebiyat?n otoritesinin kayna??n?n ne oldu?una cevap olu?turdu?unu iddia etmesi. Buna g?re bu otoritenin kayna??, bir d¨¹nya yaratman?n imkan?n? veren dilin kendisi ile varolan? ortaya ??karan yazar aras?nda de?i?iyor. Miller bu a?maz?n ortas?nda, mevcut iki z?t yakla??m aras?ndan nihai bir karar?n verilmesinin olanaks?z oldu?unu d¨¹?¨¹n¨¹yor.
J. Hillis Miller gibi bilhassa Derrida'yla da dirsek temas?nda olmu? ?a?da? edebiyat kuramc?lar?n?n T¨¹rk?eye ?evrilmesi ?ok b¨¹y¨¹k olay. Daha bu ilk kitab? ama ?ok ?nemli bir katk? edebiyat ?al??malar? ve felsefe i?in. Ketebe Yay?nlar?'na ve terc¨¹me eden Orhan Tuncay'a te?ekk¨¹rler.
I guess this is Miller's version of a "Very Short Introduction" kind of book, a survey and broad overview of the field of literary studies, but doesn't quite work on that level-- he starts out talking about the subject in very broad and approachable terms-- so he talks about how literary texts create virtual realities, for example. But he quickly, and kind of without warning, lapses into some very sophisticated language, so that soon enough he's using terms from Hegel and showing how the way these terms have been mistranslated is significant.....
In other words, Miller doesn't seem to know his audience, or who he's writing for. There are places here that are maddeningly simplistic, and then places that are a little over my head, and I might have both reactions on the same page.
I really like Miller, and reading this reminded me, again, what's at stake in deconstructive criticism, and I appreciate the approachability of Miller's personal stories of reading _Swiss Family Robinson_. But this is a book that really needed some strong editorial guidance-- in its current state, it's more rambling and talky than it probably should be.