products of this 'filling-in' process, assessing and drawing distinctions between the factors
of pure perception, projected phantasies, and interpretation." Although the details of their
study need not concern us here, it is interesting to note that, according to their findings,
interpersonal relationships begin to assume pathological traits to the degree in which
individual partners fill the gap with projected phantasies. However, it must be borne in
mind that the multiplicity of human relations would be impossible if their basis were
already fixed; the dyadic and dynamic interaction comes about only because we are
unable to experience how we experience one another, which in turn proves to be a pro-
pellant to interaction. Out of this fact arises the basic need for interpretation, which
regulates the whole process of interaction. As we cannot perceive without preconception,
each percept, in turn, only makes sense
2U. D. Laing, II. Phillipson, A. R. Lee, Interpersonal Perception: A Tlteory and a Method of Research (Now York, 1066), p. 4. "11.
D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (Ilannondsworth, 1968), p. 16. 4Ibid., p. 34. r'lbid., in this context there is a relevant observation
made by Umberto Eco, Elnfiihning in the Semiotik (UTB 105), traiisl. by Jiirgcn Trabant (Munich, 1972), p. 410, "at the root of every possible communication there is no code, but only the absence of all codes." "Sec Laing, Phillipson, Lee, Interpersonal Perception, pp. 18f.
166 Interaction between Text and Reader
to us if it is processed, for pure perception is quite impossible. Hence dyadic interaction is not given by nature, but arises out of an interpretative activity, which will contain a view of others and, unavoidably, also an image of ourselves.
Now the fact that we cannot experience the way others experience us does not by any means denote an ontological boundary; it only arises out of the dyadic interaction itself. If there is a boundary, it can
only be in the sense that the limitations shown up by the interaction give rise to continual attempts to transcend them, i.e., to cross the boundary. Thus the dyadic interaction produces the negativity of experience (we cannot experience how others experience us), and this, in turn, stimulates us into closing the resultant gap by way of interpretation, at the same time putting us in a position to reject our own interpretative gestalten and so remain open to further experience.
An obvious and major difference between reading and all forms of social interaction is the fact that with reading there is no face-to-face situation.'' A text cannot adapt itself to each reader with whom it comes in contact. The partners in dyadic interaction can ask each other questions in order to ascertain how far their views have controlled contingency, or their images have bridged the gap of
inexperienceability of one another's experiences. The reader, however, can never learn from the text how accurate or inaccurate are his views of it. Furthermore, dyadic interaction serves specific purposes, so that the interaction always has a regulative context, which often serves as a tertium
comparationis. There is no such frame of reference governing the text-reader relationship; on the
contrary, the codes which might regulate this interaction are fragmented in the text and must first be reassembled or, in most cases, restructured before any frame of reference can be established. Here, then, in conditions and intention, we find two basic differences between the text-reader relationship and the dyadic interaction between social partners.
Now it is the very lack of ascertainability and defined intention that brings about the text-reader interaction, and here there is a vital link with dyadic interaction. Social communication, as we have seen, arises out of contingency (behavioral plans do not coincide, and people cannot experience how others experience them), not out of the common situation or out of the conventions that join both partners together. The situation and conventions regulate the manner in which gaps are filled, but the gaps in turn arise out of contingency and inexperienceability and, consequently, function as a basic inducement to communication. Similarly,
7See also E. Goffman, Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior (New York, 1967).
Asymmetry between Text and Reader 167
it is the gaps, the fundamental asymmetry between text and reader, that give rise to communication in the reading process; the lack of a common situation and a common frame of reference corresponds to the contingency and the "no-thing" which bring about the interaction between persons. Asymmetry, contingency, the "no-thing"—these are all different forms of an indeterminate, constitutive blank which underlies all processes of interaction. As has already been pointed out, this blank is not a given, ontological fact, but is formed and modified by the imbalance inherent in dyadic interactions, as well as in that between text and reader. Balance can only be attained if the gaps are filled, and so the constitutive blank is continually bombarded with projections. The interaction fails if the mutual projections of the social partners do not change, or if the reader's projections superimpose themselves unimpeded upon the text. Failure, then, means filling the blank exclusively with one's own
projections. Now as the blank gives rise to the reader's projections, but the text itself cannot change, it follows that a successful relationship between text and reader can only come about through changes in the reader's projections.
Thus the text provokes continually changing views in the reader, and it is through those that the asymmetry begins to give way to the common ground of a situation. But through the complexity of the textual structure, it is difficult for this situation to be definitively formulated by the reader's
projections: on the contrary, it is continually reformulated as the projections themselves are readjusted by their successors. And in this process of continual correction there arises a frame of reference for the situation—a definite, though not a definitive, shape. It is only through readjustment of his own
projections that the reader can experience something previously not within his experience, and this something—as we saw in a preceding chapter—ranges from a detached object!fication of what he is entangled in, to an experience of himself that would otherwise be precluded by his entanglement in the pragmatic world around him. With dyadic interaction, the imbalance is removed by the establishment of pragmatic connections resulting in an action, which is why the preconditions are always clearly defined in relation to situations and common frames of reference. The imbalance between text and reader, however, is undefined, and it is this very indeterminacy that increases the variety of communication possible.
If these possibilities are to be fulfilled, and if communication between text and reader is to be
successful, clearly, the reader's activity must be controlled in some way by the text. The control cannot be as specific as in a face-to-face situation, equally it cannot be as determinate as a social code, which regulates social interaction. However, the guiding de-
iG8 Interaction between Text and Reader
vices operative in the reading process have to initiate communication, the success of which is
indicated by the constitution of a meaning, which cannot be equated with existing frames of reference, as its own specific quality manifests itself in questioning existing meanings and in altering existing experiences. Nor can the control be understood as a tangible entity occurring independently of the process of communication. Although exercised by the text, it is not in the text. This is well illustrated by a comment Virginia Woolf made on the novels of Jane Austen:
Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader's mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character. . . . The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future. . . . Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen's greatness.8
What is missing from the apparently trivial scenes, the gaps arising out of the dialogue—this is what stimulates the reader into filling the blanks with projections. He is drawn into the events and made to supply what is meant from what is not said. What is said only appears to take on significance as a reference to what is not said; it is the implications and not the statements that give shape and weight to the meaning. But as the unsaid comes to life in the reader's imagination, so the said "expands" to take on greater significance than might have been supposed: even trivial scenes can seem surprisingly profound. The "enduring form of life" which Virginia Woolf speaks of is not manifested on the printed page; it is a product arising out of the interaction between text and reader. Communica- 8Virginia Woolf, The Common Header. First Scries (London, "1057), p. 174. In this context, it is well worth considering Virginia Woolf's comments on the composition of her own fictional characters. She remarks in her diary: "I'm thinking furiously about Reading and Writing. I have no time to describe my plans. I should say a good deal about The Hours and my discovery: how I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters: I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humour, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect and each comes to daylight at the present moment." A Writer's Diary. Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, ed. (London, 1953), p. 60. The suggestive effect of the "beautiful caves" is continued in her work through that which she leaves out. On this subject, T. S. Eliot once observed: "Her
observation, which operates in a continuous way, implies a vast and sustained work of organization. She does not illumine with sudden bright flashes but diffuses a soft and placid light. Instead of looking for the primitive, she looks rather for the civilized, the highly civilized, where nevertheless something is found to be left out. And this something is deliberately left out, by what could be called a moral effort of the will. And, being left out, this something is, in a sense, in a melancholy sense, present." "T. S. Eliot, 'places' Virginia Woolf for French Readers," in Virginia Woolf, The Critical Heritage, Robin Majumdar and Allen McLaurin, eds. (London, 1975), p. 192.