The Lacuna of Usefulness: The Compulsion to ‘Understand’ Transgressive Fiction
The Lacuna of Usefulness: The Compulsion to ‘Understand’ Transgressive Fiction

Summary/Abstract: This article takes a brief look at why Transgressive Fiction from the 1990s has been under represented in academic circles and then examines why it was so often misread by reviewers and critics from this period. Transgressive Fiction intentionally frustrates readers using traditional referential modes of criticism by refusing to provide an objective meaning, ideology or structure. This refusal forces the reader to either engage in the text personally or begin a process of rejection and assimilation. This practice can be avoided if Transgressive texts are considered via subjective affectivism (the reader’s reaction and involvement) rather than by the quality of their execution and subject matter. This opens the way for the text to function as a place for consequence-free exploration and the enactment of taboos and their transgression.

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