Literary theory has long grappled with the question of who is central to a text. Can the author reliably convey his or her ideas to the reader, or is the reader in charge, putting their own interpretation on what we see or read?
At one extreme are Marxist literary theorists, such as Terry Eagleton, or Raymond Williams, who argue that culture is constructed out of society, and it is only through an analysis of society that we can understand it. Thus the author is in charge, conveying ideas by means of a shared inheritance of concepts which can change society and be understood by it.
At the other end of the spectrum is deconstruction. This, asserted by Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes, means that there are no limits to the interpretation we can put on a text, or indeed on what a text actually is. Barthes once famously analysed a wrestling match for its literary significance, for example. We are free to take whatever we want from culture, and hence the author is powerless, as there is no way that he or she can foresee the effect their words will have. Instead, the reader is in charge (structuralism), or no-one is in charge (post-structuralism), the text simply exists. Both these approaches negate any need to consider the history surrounding a book, the biography of the author, or what he or she was trying to say. They simply delight in the play of words and the possibilities that exist.
Both of these approaches are original and valid attempts to understand culture. Fruitful argument can be had on one side or the other. However, Fish's theory comes into neither category.
In the middle is Stanley Fish. His theory of "interpretive communities" states there are many different ways of approaching a text. However, we can be categorised into groups who will read a text in a certain way.
For example, (read my review of Casualty for more information) there are many people out there who actually enjoy Casualty and Holby City, think the storylines are meaningful and the acting superb. Me and my housemate use watching medical drama as an excuse to get drunk and throw corks at the telly whenever something really bad happens. Yet other people just watch it because there is nothing else on, or for something to listen to in thebackground. Different interpretive communities.
Why Stanley Fish feels it necessary to explain this concept ad nauseam in over 300 pages of writing, is beyond me.
His theory is one of sitting on the fence, of picking and choosing between two radical theories, and in the end achieving nothing, other than saying that different groups of people can read different things into a text. This is a commonsense statement that gets you nowhere as far as analysis, or seeing a text differently is concerned.
I read this book only because i had to. While it is fairly accessible, Fish outlines a wishy-washy, middle-of-the-road theory that does not advance literary theory one iota
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