Challenge of Reading and Understanding Contemporary Fiction

Abstract

Reading in the normal or general sense limits the possibilities of meaning, yet a text can be read for the plurality of meaning which is very evident in contemporary fiction. An author writes a text in order to throw it open to the reader whose activity produces meaning. Thus reading and understanding of a text is the result of the very subtle interaction between the text and the reader. In this sense contemporary fiction remains a sole exercise or activity of a reader. Complexity of the age in which we live makes this more challenging task for the reader. Since the author replicates his world of ideas from this complex world, this complexity and disintegration of recognizable truth, makes a deep crisis in art and society which is in flux.