Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Judit Ágnes Kádár: A Possible Application of Philosophy in the Study of Recent American Fiction
mood for fiction as well saying, that the novelist wants the reader to understand the world through questions (Vajda 121). I think the case is slightly different in postmodern literature. The only radically new idea there is that artifacts are not expected to reflect reality any longer, decreasing the relevance of the mimetic function, but to create their own worlds, paradigms, if you like, through decomposition and reorganization (i.e. emplotment). Such a pluralism and relativity cannot exist without the questioning of the existing traditions and concepts. The acceptance means tolerance and a liberal attitude in North-American literature and other spheres of life towards the diversity of viewpoints, opinions and the existence of many worlds. This theory applied to literature means that not only are there as many worlds as individuals, but also each piece of literature has its own world in which the characters, relationships, actions, the language of the texts, etc. gain a meaning, or rather: as many meanings coexist as the number of readers of a given text. Consequently, with the disappearance of the One True Definition in philosophy the possibility of a singular True Meaning and Interpretation has vanished, too. The same tendency exists in literature, actually it had already existed in modernism. That makes understanding modern and postmodern literature a bit difficult for those who acquired their literary education in a traditional way and have not got used to creative reading. Novelists are aware of the risk of unintelligibility. Diversification of the reading public is a challenge for them and they often find confusion or snobbish pretence of understanding, like The Silver Horn Society and Mr. Czolgacz in Elliott Baker's Fine Madness (1964). The program also told her that she was a guest of The Silver Horn Society. Studying the members' hairdos and dresses, Lydia placed the organization somewhere near Fifth Avenue and Ninetieth Street. She wondered if any of them could tell if she wasn't a Silver Horner, and decided they probably couldn't. She lived twenty blocks down from them and further east, but she had become an obvious type, too —wife of a professional man, children in private school, dabbler in the arts; nothing that would make her stand out in this crowd.... Mr. Czolgacz's harp provided a welcome change of pace. His choice of the Attaignant piece and Dussek's Sonata was, she knew, deliberate. The egotistical snob would play things with which his audience wasn't familiar. She could feel the women nearest her relax 47
