#18 - Global, Must, Author's and Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[freddythepup]

Hi,

Can you please explain why E is not the right answer? I chose E at first because I thought that both passages are saying that when the reader knows which genre a book is in, then that reader will choose to read that book in a certain way and enjoy it.

I really don't see how we can tell that that both authors would agree that B: any science fiction story can be read as a detective story. Can you please tell me where I can find this in the text? Thanks.

[Brook Miscoski]

Freddy,

You were correct to search for a point of agreement between the passages.

You are also correct to say that each author thinks that it's important how a reader approaches a book.

The main problem with (E) is that the author of Passage B thought there were "borderline" books where protocol is less uniform and that understanding a single protocol is important mainly for books that are more "central." Also, neither passage talked about "enjoyment," so I would eliminate the choice.

The reason the answer is (B) follows from lines 5-10 and lines 33-35. Lines 5-10 state that any story can be read as a detective story, and lines 33-35 state that a reader can take any approach the reader wants. Therefore, anything can be read as a detective story.

[ange.li6778]

Could you explain why B is the right answer? I didn't see anything in passage A that indicated science fiction could be read as a detective story Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

Check out this text from the first paragraph of passage A, ange.li6778:

For Borges, this “special type of reader” confronts literature with such “incredulity and suspicions” that he or she might read any narrative as a detective story.

If Borges thinks a certain type of reader can read anything as a detective story, then he must agree that they could read science fiction that way!

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.
What makes answer choice C incorrect? I found support for what C states that: " every work of fiction unambiguously belongs to SOME particular genre or other" in Passage A last line about how the reader reads the work:

"Thus, what unites works belonging to the same genre is the way those works are read, rather than, say, a set of formal elements found within the works "

.
Is C wrong because of the word "every"? Is it too extreme to be supported in passage?
I appreciate your help!

[Robert Carroll]

GGIBA003,

Answer choice (C) completely contradicts what passage B says about borderline cases.

Robert Carroll

[g_lawyered]

I see it now, thanks for clarifying that Robert!

[jmurphy13]

I thought A was correct, because Borges said "what unites works belonging to the same genre is the way works are read", and I took "if Poe created the detective story, he subsequently created the reader of detective fiction" to mean that the author's writing shapes how works are read.

After careful examination I can see that the "fully determined" in Answer A is too strong for what Borges was saying, and a reader can read "any narrative as a detective story" means that genre isn't fully determined by the author, but I was wondering if there is a simpler way to eliminate this answer quickly.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi jmurphy1,

Unfortunately, Answer A is actually the opposite of what Borges believed.

If the genre was fully determined by the author's intention, then the reader would be completely unnecessary to the process. For example, an author could write a story that the author intends to be in the detective genre and then it is now part of that genre, even if nobody else ever reads it.

This directly contradicts Borge's view that literature "requires the conjunction of reader and text" (lines 13-14) and "the participation of the reader is not extrinsic but instead essential to the literary text" (lines 17-18).

The final sentence of Passage A clarifies this point, "Thus what unites works belonging to the same genre is the way that they are read rather than, say, a set of formal elements found within the work" (my emphasis, lines 19-21). The formal elements within the work are the parts that the author controls, but these are not what determines the genre.

The observation that Poe "subsequently created the reader of detective fiction" (lines 4-5) is tricky and easy to misunderstand, but it doesn't imply that Poe alone created the readers' reactions to his text. Instead, the readers responded to Poe's detective stories in certain ways and that conjunction of reader and text is what forms the genre according to Borge.