Consumer Critics Online: Global Citizens or Literary Voyeurs?

table 1. translated literary fiction books

4. interpretive strategies

Our analytical focus is not on the positive or negative evaluations users make of particular books, but on what Sarah Corse and Saundra Westervelt call interpretive strategies, the schemas reviewers use for responding to and evaluating books as global cultural objects: “Interpretive strategies construct a narrative for readers by selectively engaging certain aspects of multivocal texts — but not others — to create dominant readings of those texts by framing the narrative in specific, largely determining ways.”[35] We find that interpretive strategies lead readers to different understandings of what it means to read translated literature.

We describe three different interpretive strategies that Goodreads reviewers use to construct their evaluations of novels: approaching literature as experience, art, and/or ethnography. These interpretive strategies are not mutually exclusive; in some cases, a reviewer might invoke more than one of these strategies in the same review. We considered an interpretive style dominant if it comprised more than 60 percent of a review’s evaluative text. The strategies are summarized in Table 2 and described in the following sections. We use the interpretive strategies as ideal types to understand how different criteria of evaluation shape readers’ judgments about translated literature and what that might mean for its wider circulation and legitimation.

Although our purpose here is not to examine how these strategies map onto the poles of literary production (i.e., writing that on the one hand might be classified as serious, literary, or high-brow, and writing that on the other hand might be regarded as popular, commercial, or genre fiction), we do find that all three of these interpretive strategies are present in reviews of books that fall at both ends of this spectrum.

4.1 Literature as Experience

The most common interpretive strategy used by Goodreads reviewers to evaluate translated novels is to base their evaluation on their own subjective experience of reading. This strategy was used in three-quarters of the reviews and was the dominant interpretation in about half of the reviews. Using experiential interpretation, readers equate writing with storytelling, measuring quality by their own individual responses: does the story feel real? Are they drawn into it? Does it move them emotionally? Consumer critics’ emphasis on subjective responses to ­reading — feeling absorbed by the story and experiencing an emotional reaction — is similar to the criteria used by professional critics. Chong, for example, found that critics also use their own emotional responses as evidence in published book reviews.[36] We find that readers also apply this interpretive strategy when assessing the quality of translations, finding a translation good if it does not impede the reader’s experience of the story. Conversely, translations are judged negatively when they interfere with the immersive experience of reading.

Consumer critics who use subjective experience as an interpretive strategy tend to equate writing with “great,” “magnificent,” and “wonderful” storytelling. Praise for authors centers on their ability to weave a compelling narrative that draws the reader in. Reviewers respond positively to “the kind of masterful storytelling that wells up to pull the reader into a unique and unforgettable experience.” One reviewer’s strong positive response to a book was based on “not so much what happens in this story as the way the author tells it, which of course is the mark of a talented author.” While some of these positive reviews speak to authors’ mastery of their craft, many others describe storytelling as “extraordinary talent” or an innate ability rather than as a technical skill that has been honed.

Consumer critics evaluating their subjective experiences often focus on whether books “really bring the reader into the story” and “stay with you long after you read the last pages.” Readers describe being brought into a story with statements like “you feel as if you are actually living that journey,” and by describing “a visceral physicality to the language and I felt the impact of every word.” It is not the particular valence of the emotion that matters, so much as whether an emotional response is experienced as powerful or moving. For example, they express high praise for reading experiences that are “excruciatingly bitter,” “agonizingly poignant,” “unbearably sad,” or “leave the reader feeling a blanket of chilling apprehension.” In fact, many reviewers offer the highest praise to stories that evoke tears, whether they be tears of joy or sadness. A common description of this strong reaction was the confession that a book made them “ugly-cry” — offered as proof of the story’s power to move them.

In contrast, negative reviews described subjective experiences of not being able to connect with a book, finding the plot confusing or boring, or being unable to relate to characters they found “flat.” One such reviewer writes, “I give this book three stars just because I felt distant from the characters and their emotions and relationships.” For some readers focused on experiencing the narrative, expository style can get in the way of enjoying the story. For example, a reviewer explains, “These two narratives are told from during [sic] different time frames and Segovia bounces back and forth taking time to meander on smaller plot points and ­description … For me it made it harder to focus and lose myself in the story.” For these consumer critics, too much artistic experimentation may be distracting, interfering with their ability to become emotionally absorbed in the story itself.

For interpretation based primarily upon subjective experience, translated novels introduce a particular element of risk. Readers want to be lost in the writing, not lost in the translation. To be judged adequate, a translation must not interfere with their affective experience of reading. Often acknowledging their inability to judge a translation on technical grounds, readers look instead to their subjective experience of the book as an indication of the translator’s skill (in addition to the writer’s talent). A good translation, by this standard, should be transparent — that is, the translation itself should disappear so that the reader is able to feel that they are reading the book “as if it was written in its original language.” As a reviewer describes,

I always feel as if I’m taking a risk when I read a translation of a book, because I think I might not fully get what the author is trying to convey in his or her native language. The beautiful translation of this book felt true to me and it felt like English was the language it was written in, so kudos to Charlotte Collins who translated this book.

Readers relying on subjective experience to evaluate books view translation as a medium through which to experience the story, and praise translations that don’t feel like they are translated.

A bad translation, on the other hand, introduces elements that prevent a reader’s immersion in the story, such as “translation clunkiness.” Because readers want to experience a story as if reading the original, even small features that draw attention to language can get in the way of their reading pleasure. For some, particular words or phrases stick out, as was the case for a reviewer who complained that “I just kept getting stuck, tripping over the stilted cadence of the awkwardly translated passages. Why are a group of thirty-somethings in Japan using words like: reckon, dodgy and glum?” Other complaints that come up from time to time involve lack of familiarity with names, places, or currency, which can make it difficult to keep track of characters or plot lines. An awkward translation distracts readers from the story, prevents them from connecting emotionally with the characters, and generally impedes their ability to “get into” the writing.

Using subjective experience to evaluate a translated novel can be complicated. Some reviewers express uncertainty about whether their inability to connect with a story is attributable to the writer or the translator. A typical example reads:

Unfortunately, I found the actual writing very clunky a lot of the time and the majority of the dialogue felt stilted and clumsy. I’m torn as to how far to let this influence my rating, though, as I have no way of knowing how much of this is due to the author and how much is the translator’s fault. The agony of reading books in translation, folks …

Of the 700 reviews we analyzed, the reviewers explicitly write about the translation in 178 (25 percent). More than half of these allude to the idea that something is “lost in translation.” Readers who rely primarily upon subjective reading experience to evaluate literature often express a vague sense that something is a little bit “off” when reading a translated novel.

4.2 Literature as Art

A second interpretive strategy that Goodreads users apply treats literature as an art form to be evaluated for its aesthetic qualities, artistic innovation, or authorial voice. Artistic interpretation was present in two-thirds of the reviews and was the dominant interpretive scheme in almost one-quarter. This strategy is often signaled by the language of high art,[37] using critical terms to describe literary devices, stylistic techniques, and narrative voice. Goodreads reviewers’ use of literary terms echoes the reflexive reading practices professional critics use to “turn their subjective experience of books into an object of scrutiny.”[38] When employing this interpretive strategy, reviewers describe good writing as a skill to be mastered, rather than a matter of innate talent. They also describe translation as its own art form, focusing on the beauty and elegance of the translation as well as its faithfulness to the original text. Though aesthetic interpretation uses the vocabulary of high art, this interpretive strategy is present in reviews of books in our sample that might be regarded as lighter popular novels as well as those that may be more easily recognized as serious literary fiction.

Aesthetic interpretation of novels often centers on the quality and style of the writing. Frequently-used descriptors include “beautiful,” “gorgeous,” “elegant,” “exquisite,” “sublime,” and “lyrical.” Consumer critics acknowledge that beauty is subjective: “Everyone who loves beautiful writing should read this book. That being said, results may vary. My idea of beautiful may not be your idea of beautiful. This book contains disturbing imagery described passionately. Kang finds beauty in even the ugliest places.” Indeed, this interpretive strategy allows readers to appreciate the beauty of an author’s writing, even if the subject matter is distasteful.

Although aesthetic reviewers acknowledge the importance of narrative and plot, they focus their evaluation on stylistic and aesthetic appreciation rather than on immersion in the story. For example, one reviewer wrote that they got “lost in the melody flowing from the magical alphabetic strings, the symbiotic sounds of voices on paper. Sometimes it is this music that kept me reading, surpassing the moral of the story.” Unlike interpreting literature through subjective experience, when consumer critics evaluate literature as art, they are looking for writing that stands out from the story: “writing [that] is at times stop-you-in-your-reading-tracks incandescent.” They are looking for good writing to call attention to itself, even if this means interrupting their absorption in the narrative to consider the aesthetic effect of the writing technique.

Consumer critics who evaluate literature as art often rely on the vocabulary of professional literary criticism, sprinkling their reviews with critical terms like genre, metaphor, prose, motif, tone, and poetic. Rather than centering on the consumer’s experience, these reviews focus on the producer, pointing out artistic innovation and describing the genius, brilliance, skill, or ambition of the author. They express a high-brow appreciation for complexity and subtlety; in contrast, negative evaluations of novels often include expressions of “disgust at the facile,”[39] criticizing writing they find “plain,” “artless,” “inane,” “verbose,” and “flowery.” Aesthetic evaluators employ an analytical tone, referring to “unconventional perspectival choices,” “the framing of the novel,” an author’s “audacity [and] execution,” or “a brilliant cascade of stylistic techniques.” They describe the author’s distinctive voice, noting what sets them apart from others and including selected quotations from the text to illustrate various points of description or analysis. Within this interpretive scheme, reviewers sometimes also draw explicit comparisons with other authors or express their opinions about what constitutes great literature.

With such a strong focus on the author’s voice and unique style, aesthetic evaluators recognize the importance of translation as its own art form. Aesthetic reviews of writing and translation are often, but not always, in alignment. Some reviewers credit the translator alongside the author for the book’s quality: “The writing is insanely beautiful. I could basically quote the whole book here as an example. And credits [sic] for this [go] not only to the author, but to the translator as well.” Others recognize that translation can interfere with the quality of writing. From an aesthetic view, translations are deemed good when they convey the author’s meaning as well as the beauty of their unique style and voice: “I adored the writing, such exquisite work by translator Charlotte Collins. I don’t speak German so can’t attest to the faithfulness in style and substance, but it read so elegantly and expressively.”

However, aesthetic reviewers are sometimes uncertain whether their stylistic criticisms should be directed toward the author or the translator. Several reviewers express some desire to “give the author the benefit of the doubt.” This is especially the case when they are aware that the author has received wider critical accolades for the book: “I was also disappointed in the writing from this Nobel Prize winner. Perhaps it is the translation” or “because there were so many good reviews in Spanish I wonder if the problem was translation.” When they don’t find the beautiful writing or stylistic flair they are expecting, aesthetically-oriented readers may be cautious about trusting the translation.

Even when readers praise the aesthetic qualities of a novel, the knowledge that they are reading a translation may cause doubt that they are able to fully appreciate the work: “I was taken aback by the flow and poetic feel that permeates this novel, this [is] all the more surprising as this book was originally written in Spanish, I can’t even begin to imagine how striking this novel must be to those who can read it the way that Zafón intended it to be.” As with readers who evaluate work based on their subjective experience, aesthetic evaluators also sometimes find that something is lost in translation. However, instead of feeling that they are prevented from appreciating the story itself, their aesthetic lens gives them the feeling that they are missing out on the authentic and unmediated literary voice of the author.

Finally, a small number of reviewers specifically expressed either a preference for translated works or a desire to see more novels translated into English from other languages. They wanted to make literature more accessible and visible to an English-speaking public. Notably, some mention the idea that there is a lot of artistic literary work out there that is inaccessible to them because of language barriers, saying things like, “it really makes me wonder how many other gems there are that never made it to translation.” Thus, an interpretive strategy that views literature primarily as art highlights both the inevitability of linguistic barriers to aesthetic appreciation as well as the ability of (good) translations to partially overcome these barriers.

4.3 Literature as Ethnography

A third interpretive strategy treats literature as ethnography — a way to learn about other places and cultures. When consumer critics use novels as a way to familiarize themselves with other cultures and learn what people are like in other parts of the world, they show an interest in places and ways of life that are foreign to them. Ethnographic interpretation was present in one-third of reviews overall. Although distinctive as a strategy, ethnographic interpretation was typically combined with another interpretive scheme. Though dominant in only 10 percent of reviews, it was a substantial part of nearly all the reviews that were not counted as having a single dominant interpretive style. Goodreads reviewers who use this strategy describe translated novels as though they were primers that give insight into other cultures. This is especially evident when they specify who might enjoy reading a translated novel: “It’s a tremendously informative work for anyone curious about other countries” and “reading it will make you smarter, more interested, more cultured.” To satisfy their curiosity about other cultures, consumer critics use authors, settings, and characters as windows to peer into other societies, providing opportunities for readers to decode texts by interpreting and filtering them through their preexisting national repertoires — that is, perceived ideas of what a nation is.

When reviewers describe literary style as representing an author’s culture, they draw on typifying knowledge schemes that link geographic place, national identity, and aesthetic forms. They make intertextual interpretations, comparing this novel or author with others — wondering, for example, why “Scandinavians … write such new styles of bittersweet tragic-comic hybrid things” or “why Italy turns out so many good realist novelists.” Though phrased as questions, these examples also show readers concluding that the author’s style reflects national identity. Thus, reviewers make references to the “the Spanish flavor of the book,” an author’s “stilted, very Japanese way,” or an author’s contribution to “authentic Latin and South American storytelling.” Intertextual interpretations are shaped by existing literary typifications that link styles and place, such as associating magical realism with Latin America.

Ethnographic readers also make note of their emotional responses to novels, but they use emotional cues more to understand the author’s culture than to evaluate the quality of the novel. They construct affective cultural schemes that view emotional tone as reflecting national culture. For example:

Rather than directly throw whatever emotion characters might be feeling at its readers, Japanese authors tend to weave such emotions with the story, letting them blend in discretely [sic] yet in a way they touch the reader’s hearts. I believe the distinct flavor and atmosphere — rather calm and tranquil, even soothing — come from such a predisposition of Japanese literature and that’s what makes Japanese novels attract many readers all over the world.

Some interpretations draw explicit contrasts between cultures, as when a reviewer asserts: “American authors tend to impose unrealistic happy endings while Europeans favor poignant sad ones.” In this interpretive strategy, writing styles and the affective responses they evoke come together in readers’ minds to reinforce and shape the schemas they use to link literary quality, geography, and national cultures.

Novels also offer pathways into other cultures through their settings — especially the socio-historical contexts for the narratives. This is particularly prominent in reviews of books that take their inspiration from real historical events, such as those set during the Spanish Civil War, the Mexican Revolution, the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, and the Gwangju Massacre in South Korea. It is, of course, common for reviewers to state that they learned about a historical event from its exposition in the novel. Beyond learning about historical events, though, some reviewers take the additional step of explicitly positioning themselves as vernacularizers writing for an audience of other readers. Vernacularizers go beyond simple communication or translation to make something comprehensible, useable, or applicable to a particular setting.[40] These reviewers assess their audience’s “horizon of expectations” and try to “educate their readers on the source culture” by drawing interdiscursive connections between contexts.[41] Thus, consumer critics sometimes caution that understanding a novel requires familiarity with the historical context of its setting, explaining that a book “takes you to a place in history where you may have little or no experience” or that one must understand that “these characters reflect the time period.” Occasionally, a reviewer points out inaccuracies in the story. In other instances, reviewers warn about misunderstandings based on presumed lack of familiarity with “foreign” cultural contexts, as in this review of Human Acts:

I also definitely appreciated the fact that there is an Introduction to this book which explains the context because, I of course know what was going on in this, but most people’s problem with “The Vegetarian” was the fact that they didn’t understand Korea/Korean culture which ANNOYED ME TO NO END BECAUSE THAT BOOK WAS SO GOOD. But yes, if you’re wondering, this one gives some context so hopefully people not well versed in Korea/Korean culture can hopefully also enjoy it.

In fact, the translator of Human Acts, Deborah Smith, adopted an approach of cultural pedagogy in her translation which some applauded and others criticized for taking too many liberties and not remaining faithful to the original text.[42]

A novel’s characters also offer windows into another culture’s norms and values. Some reviewers express that learning about other cultures motivates them to read. It is also a criterion they use for evaluating a translated novel. This expectation is often revealed in descriptions and discussions of characters:

I hadn’t read anything else by Murakami when I started this one. Actually, this is the first Japanese novel I’ve ever read, so I was quite surprised to find out his works won’t serve as an appropriate introduction to Japanese culture — he did call himself an “outcast of the Japanese literary world” after all, and his books are remarkably … Western. His characters all wear Nike or North Face, they listen to Prince, Radiohead and even Haydn, praise Truffaut and the French New Wave … hell, I could barely find any Japanese cultural references in Kafka on the Shore.

When readers, such as this one, determine that a translated novel is “too Western” or “too American,” this both comes as a surprise and constitutes a literary shortcoming. It is clear from the disappointment expressed that they expected the characters to serve as ambassadors who reflect the norms and values of another culture.

Reviewers often relate learning about particular values or tastes which they then associate with national cultures, for example associating a certain work ethic, the art of decluttering, and a fascination with cats with Japanese culture. They note Swedish love of sandwiches and coffee as well as sexual permissiveness. By reading translated literature, consumers gain a window into a culture without needing to enter or inhabit its space. The resulting view is often a flattened or limited one that becomes legible through preexisting stereotypes of what makes a “foreign” culture distinctive. While the discovery of national tastes — such as a love for cats or sandwiches — might seem trivial, it is often clear that consumer critics accept fictional portrayals of national cultures as informative and true, as when a reviewer comments that Kim Ji-young is “hardly a literary story and feels more like a Rosetta stone to understand the works coming out of present-day Korea.” The novel is seen not only as a window into Korean culture, but as a lens through which other Korean works can be understood. Repertoires of critique intersect with national repertoires to position readers as literary tourists.

When evaluating translated novels for their didactic qualities, consumer critics recognize translation as vernacularization — a way to make other cultures accessible and understandable to them. By writing their own reviews of these books, they become another link in the chain of vernacularizers who decode and re-encode novels as global cultural products. They are, as Isabel Jijon’s hermeneutic approach suggests, not only end consumers of translated novels but cultural intermediaries who apply their own schemas of critique in assessing and recommending literature. Bundling the novel itself with their own intra- and intertextual interpretations of it, they reconfigure and reencode (a version of) the text for others, imagining other readers’ self-identity as well as their “horizon of expectations” about the foreign “Other.”[43]

When these readers have difficulty understanding a text, rather than puzzle through whether the translation interfered, they presume that cultural barriers trump language differences. For example, one reviewer states: “Murakami is weird; and coincidence reigns; and there are nuances that only the Japanese can comprehend.” In this interpretive strategy, translation provides a view into another culture, but may ultimately be insufficient to surmount cultural barriers to understanding. In another example, a reader explains they are unable to connect with a novel’s characters because they “find the levels of Catholic motivation to be too much,” but goes on to assert that “probably for a Latin American reader these levels are just right.” Thus, this reader’s inability to decode the motivations of fictional characters gets reencoded not only as a judgment of the book’s quality but as a conclusion about the high levels of religiosity among Latin American readers.

5. from ethnography to literary voyeurism

It is clear that some readers use novels as ethnographic guides to gain familiarity with other cultures. Indeed, multicultural literature has been heralded as a way to expand readers’ horizons and build global citizenship, both for children and adults.[44] However, if reading is only passing through the world without a desire to become more involved or accountable in it, readers may act as literary tourists instead of becoming global citizens. Intellectual curiosity, in and of itself, is not a bad thing and can lead to a greater diversity in American reading habits that fosters the greater cultural awareness, inclusion, and empathy that so many have called for. However, in some Goodreads reviewers’ comments, literary tourism gives way to literary voyeurism when interest in other cultures is particularly oriented toward sordid or shocking details that reinforce the reader’s sense of otherness and cultural superiority. The different ways that consumer critics respond to misogyny in novels helps us understand how some interpretive strategies might lend themselves more easily to literary voyeurism than others.

Sexism, misogyny, and various forms of gendered violence feature prominently in six of the fourteen novels that we reviewed: The Story of a New Name (Ferrante), The Feast of the Goat (Llosa), The Shadow of the Wind (Zafón), 2666 (Bolaño), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Larsson), and Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (Cho). When readers encounter misogyny as a central theme in a work of fiction, how do they interpret its relationship to the book’s culture of origin? We find that a subjective interpretive strategy often leads consumer critics to interpret gender inequalities, misogyny, and sexism in European settings as reflecting either an earlier historical era or as a contemporary condition that is universal to all societies. For example, gendered violence in Ferrante’s novels is frequently interpreted by consumer critics as representing historic patterns of gender inequality in Naples: “There is a great deal of corporal punishment, and wife-beating throughout, and vicious recriminations from women and men. I have to assume it is emblematic of 1950s/1960s Naples Italy.” However, none of the reviews we analyzed saw the gender inequalities depicted in Ferrante’s novels as indicative of a particular truth about contemporary Italy. Similarly, several reviews of The Shadow of the Wind refer to the “blatant sexism pouring through every page,” noting that “all through the book, one can see female characters suffering through misery caused by the men in the novel.” Some of these reviewers attribute the sexism in the book to the era: “The society in 1945/1950 wasn’t kind on women.” Others employ an aesthetic interpretation to tie the book’s thematic sexism to the author, explaining that Zafón makes the women suffer but “does not give them space to explain their side of the story” and that “it truly reminded me that this was written by a man in the early 2000s.” However, none of these reviews draw the conclusion that the novel’s sexism grows out of some fundamental characteristic of Spain, where the novel takes place. Many reviewers of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo describe the graphic sexual violence in the book, and a few even comment upon the alteration of the translation’s title from that of the original Swedish publication, Men Who Hate Women. However, most interpret the book as a commentary on universal rape culture rather than tying the misogyny in the book to Swedish culture. An example typical of this states that “women navigate a world that tells us every time we turn a corner that it hates us … And if you think these descriptions are fantastical exaggerations, go spend some time at your local women’s shelter.”

In contrast, an interpretive strategy that approaches literature as ethnography leads reviewers to a different understanding of gendered violence depicted in novels set outside a European context. For example, reviewers of 2666 note that the violence is modeled on a real-life series of femicides near Juarez, Mexico in the 1990s, but rather than connect the violence to historical or universal attitudes toward women, some see the violence as reflective of Mexican culture, as in this review, which is reproduced without correction:

At the core of 2666 is a fictional retelling of the ‘female murders’ of juarez. y’know about this? well, if it happened here or in europe, you’d have heard about it. naw, that’s not true. if it happened here or in europe, it wouldn’t have gotten this far. the fuckers would’ve been caught long ago … what matters, what’s actually happening over there on a sociocultural level is infinitely more horrifying

This reviewer’s interpretation that femicides happened “over there” instead of “here or in Europe” leads to their conclusion that they reflect a “sociocultural” reality of Mexican patriarchy. The reader’s use of an ethnographic interpretive strategy predisposes them to regard the setting as distant and “other,” rather than recognizing Ciudad Juárez as a border town, where femicide is as much an American sociocultural reality as it a Mexican one.

Reviews of Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 reveal a strong tension between contrasting interpretations. Among the fifty reviews of this book that we analyzed, reviewers were almost evenly split, with about half interpreting the central theme of the book as illustrating effects of patriarchy rooted in universal causes, and the other half using an ethnographic interpretation of the novel as offering special insight into South Korean culture. Ethnographic interpreters describe the “novel’s thorough portrayal of the entrenched sexism in South Korean society,” see it as a “nation-specific commentary,” or describe it as “a story of inequality, custom and society in South Korea, … a society that still isn’t ready to let go of gender role traditions.” They may even explicitly recommend the book to others as a cultural primer: “I recommend Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 for those interested in learning more about sexism and patriarchy in South Korea.” Some of these reviewers draw explicit contrasts between Korea and their own society, characterizing Korea as “behind” on gender issues. For example, some make historical comparisons such as: “The 1980’s and 90’s grade school vignettes are familiar to American women who were girls in the 1950’s and 1960’s. … American girls endure these but have better support than Korea’s girls in this novel.”

On the other hand, reviewers whose interpretive strategy focuses on subjective experience describe Kim Ji-young as an “everywoman,” describe her story as “the story of all women,” and state that the book “raises questions about endemic misogyny and institutional oppression that are relevant to us all.” Many of the reviewers who interpreted Kim Ji-young through this universal lens self-identified as women and wrote that the character’s experiences resonated with their own:

Reading this felt both shocking and familiar. I wish I could say this book surprised me, being from a different culture and a slightly different time, but it didn’t. The things mentioned in here are all known to me, either from my own personal experiences or through current events. I think any female reader, no matter the background, will see similarities with their own life.

While acknowledging the South Korean context of the novel, they see its depiction as transcending cultural specificity, expressed quite succinctly by one reviewer as: “Different country, same old sexist bullshit. A tale painfully familiar, just set in a foreign land.”

We find evidence in these reviews that different interpretive approaches to literature shape meaningful differences in the degree to which diverse reading might contribute to global citizenship. Whereas an experiential approach to literature predisposes readers to identify with characters and thus to recognize shared understandings, an ethnographic approach to literature predisposes readers instead to highlight cultural differences. Taken to an extreme, this approach can encourage literary voyeurism.

6. conclusion

We began our inquiry with an aspirational question: Given persistent inequalities in the global literary world, what would it take to entice more readers in the United States to engage with literature not originally written in English? This is, of course, a political question. Given increasing global interdependence, audiences in centers of international power have much to learn about life in what have been non-central locales. We sought, therefore, to unbundle how readers engage with works in translation. How do they enter the worlds these works describe and what criteria do they use to evaluate their experiences? This empirical study seeks to understand how one group of readers — users of the Goodreads reviewing platform — interpret the meaning of translated novels as global cultural objects. These interpretations are relevant to understanding the potential of digital reading cultures to encourage readers to expand their literary comfort zones and make critical use of novels as a way of engaging in the world.

Consumer reception studies are one piece of the puzzle for understanding the shifting landscapes of global cultural inequality. Consumer reviews contribute to which kinds of books get global recognition. Our reception study helps us understand how reading cultures and readers’ assumptions about the purpose of literature shape the ways in which they evaluate novels. We identified various interpretative strategies used by consumer critics including literature as experience, art, ethnography, and voyeurism. By purposively selecting novels based on user-generated labels and high visibility on the Goodreads site, our intent is not to define literary fiction, but to ask how consumers interpret the works they categorize under this label. Each strategy reflects different reader expectations about what work literature will do and the criteria readers use to judge whether authors do it well, whether in works of literary or popular fiction. These expectations, in turn, affect how readers think about and evaluate translation quality.

Here, we have used these ideal-typical interpretive strategies as a window onto the different ways readers interact with and think about what it means to read literature in translation, but we do not expect these interpretive strategies are exclusive only to translated books. The different metrics for cultural evaluation are intertwined with the meanings readers draw from global literature more broadly. When and if writers from non-central countries make it onto book review platforms that attract the attention of readers located in central ones, their works are sometimes treated as ethnography rather than art. For example, author Sumana Roy asserts that writers from the Global South are “burdened with satisfying the intellectual curiosity of the white world” in order to be deemed worthwhile.[45] Similarly, while some readers may approach novels as a way to experience commonalities with others around the world, others may interpret novels in ways that reinforce cultural stereotypes and ethnocentrism. In other words, readers’ interpretive strategies can be a way that inequality in the global literary world is maintained. Our hope is that empirical documentation of these differences may help readers to become more aware and invite self-­reflection on the ways they draw interpretive meaning from translated novels.

While traditional mainstream media outlets are devoting more pages to works in translation, progress is still slow. Examining the ways consumers interact with and interpret novels helps us understand the broader effect digital platforms might have on the reception of translated literature and its subsequent integration into literary canons. Although our findings suggest that the interpretive strategies we identify cut across so-called high-brow and low-brow poles of literary production, we did not set out to compare book reviews on this categorical basis. Further study could make more systematic comparisons along this axis to illuminate whether readers may be predisposed to use different genres as paths to global citizenship versus voyeurism. The more readers can understand the interpretive schemas that shape their preferences and responses, the more they can make informed, proactive choices to disrupt global inequalities in creative ­cultural products.

endnotes

1. Markella Rutherford and Peggy Levitt, “Who’s on the Syllabus? World Literature According to the US Pedagogical Canon,” Journal of World Literature 5 (2020): 606–629. ↩

2. Margo Fitzpatrick, “Translation in the English-Speaking World,” Publishing Trendsetter (2016), http://publishingtrendsetter.com/industryinsight/translation-englishspeaking-world". ↩

3. Markella Rutherford, Peggy Levitt, and Erika Zhang, “Whence the 3 Percent? How Far Have We Come toward Decentering America’s Literary Preference?” Global Perspectives 5, no. 1 (2024); Susanne Janssen, Giselinde Kuipers, and Marc Verboord, “Cultural Globalization and Arts Journalism: The International Orientation of Arts and Culture Coverage in Dutch, French, German, and US Newspapers, 1955 to 2005,” American Sociological Review 73 (2008): 719–740. ↩

4. Marc Verboord, “The Impact of Peer-Produced Criticism on Cultural Evaluation: A Multilevel Analysis of Discourse Employment in Online and Offline Film Reviews,” New Media & Society 16, no. 6 (2014): 921–940. ↩

5. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Harvard, 1984), 359; Luca Pareschi, “How I Met My Publisher: Casual and Serial Intermediaries in First-Time Authors’ Publication in the Italian Literary Field,” Cultural Sociology 9, no. 3 (2015): 401–424; David Hesmondhalgh, “Bourdieu, the Media and Cultural Production,” Media, Culture & Society 28, no. 2 (2006): 211–231. ↩

6. Howard Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2008); Keith Negus, “The Work of Cultural Intermediaries and the Enduring Distance between Production and Consumption,” Cultural Studies 16, no. 4 (2002): 501–515. ↩

7. Michèle Lamont, “Toward a Comparative Sociology of Valuation and Evaluation,” Annual Review of Sociology 38 (2012): 201–221. ↩

8. Pareschi, “How I Met My Publisher.” ↩

9. Cees J. van Rees, “How a Literary Work Becomes a Masterpiece: On the Threefold Selection Practiced by Literary Criticism,” Poetics 12, no. 4–5 (1983): 397–417; Phillipa Chong, “Reading Difference: How Race and Ethnicity Function as Tools for Critical Appraisal,” Poetics 39 (2011): 64–84. ↩

10. Johan Heilbron, “Towards a Sociology of Translation: Book Translations as a Cultural World-System,” European Journal of Social Theory 2, no. 4 (1999): 429–444; Rutherford et al., “Whence the 3 Percent?” ↩

11. Pauwke Berkers, Susanne Janssen, and Marc Verboord, “Globalization and Ethnic Diversity in Western Newspaper Coverage of Literary Authors: Comparing Developments in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, 1955 to 2005,” American Behavioral Scientist 55, no. 5 (2011): 624–641; Heilbron, “Towards a Sociology of Translation.” ↩

12. Susanne Janssen, “Reviewing as a Social Practice: Institutional Constraints on Critics’ Attention for Contemporary Fiction,” Poetics 24 (1997): 275–297. ↩

13. Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, ed. and with an introduction by Randal Johnson (New York, Columbia, 1993); Janssen, “Reviewing as a Social Practice.” ↩

14. Shyon Baumann, “Intellectualization and Art World Development: Film in the United States,” American Sociological Review 66, no. 3 (2001): 404–426; Verboord, “The impact of Peer-Produced Criticism on Cultural Evaluation.” ↩

15. Sarah M. Corse and Monica D. Griffin, “Cultural Valorization and African American Literary History: Reconstructing the Canon,” Sociological Forum 12, no. 2 (1997):173–203; Chong, “Reading Difference” ↩

16. Jim Collins, Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2010). ↩

17. Timothy J. Dowd, Susanne Janssen, and Marc Verboord, “Introduction: Fields in Transition — Fields in Action,” Poetics 37 (2009): 399–401. ↩

18. Simone Murray, “Charting the Digital Literary Sphere,” Contemporary Literature 56, no. 2 (2015): 311–339. ↩

19. Verboord, “The Impact of Peer-Produced Criticism.” ↩

20. Karen Bourrier, “‘Goodreads’ Readers #ReadWomen, and So Should University English Departments,” The Canadian Press (2021). ↩

21. Stacy J. Dixon, “Goodreads: Number of Registered Members 2011–2019,” Statista (2022) https://www.statista.com/statistics/252986/number-of-registered-members-on-goodreadscom. ↩

22. Alexa.com, October 7, 2021, https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/goodreads.com. ↩

23. Mike Thelwall and Kayvan Kousha, “Goodreads: A Social Network Site for Book Readers,” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 68, no. 4 (2017): 972–983. ↩

24. Bourrier, “Goodreads’ Readers.” ↩

25. Lisa Nakamura, “‘Words with Friends’: Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads,” PMLA 128, no. 1 (2013): 238–243. ↩

26. Ibid., 241. ↩

27. Ibid., 239. ↩

28. Rutherford et al., “Whence the 3 Percent?” ↩

29. Peggy Levitt, “Explaining Variations in Scale-Shifting: The Role of Spatiality, Topography, and Infrastructure in Global Literary Fields,” Poetics 79 (2020). ↩

30. We use this term broadly, recognizing that it falls short of capturing all the variety of authors’ positions and experiences. For example, some of the authors in our sample were born in the Global South but now live and work in the Global North. Others work from what some scholars call semi-peripheral countries while some older novels were written at a time when these distinctions were referred to as differences between the First and Third Worlds. Future work might take these boundaries on as a matter of linguistic rather than geopolitical dominance. ↩

31. Peggy Levitt and Markella Rutherford, “Beyond the West: Barriers to Globalizing Art History,” Art History Pedagogy & Practice 4, no. 1 (2019); Rutherford and Levitt, “Who’s on the Syllabus?” ↩

32. We have no interest in nor ability to adjudicate the elusive boundaries between popular and literary fiction. We simply wish to provide some sense of the relative accessibility and reach of the books reviewed in our study sample. ↩

33. Rutherford et al., “Whence the 3 Percent?” ↩

34. Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 3rd edition (Thousand Oaks, Sage, 2007). ↩

35. Sarah M. Corse and Saundra D. Westervelt, “Gender and Literary Valorization: The Awakening of a Canonical Novel,” Sociological Perspectives 45, no. 2 (2002): 139–161. ↩

36. Phillipa Chong, “Legitimate Judgment in Art, the Scientific World Reversed? Maintaining Critical Distance in Evaluation,” Social Studies of Science 43, no. 2 (2013): 265–281. ↩

37. Baumann, “Intellectualization and Art World Development”; Verboord, “The Impact of Peer-Produced Criticism.” ↩

38. Chong, “Legitimate Judgment in Art,” 274. ↩

39. Bourdieu, Distinction, 486. ↩

40. Peggy Levitt and Sally Merry, “Vernacularization on the Ground: Local Uses of Global Women’s Rights in Peru, China, India and the United States,” Global Networks 9, no. 4 (2009): 441–461. ↩

41. Isabel Jijon “Toward a Hermeneutic Model of Cultural Globalization: Four Lessons from Translation Studies,” Sociological Theory 37 (2): 142–161. ↩

42. Jiayang Fan, “Buried Words: Han Kang and the Complexity of Translation,” The New Yorker 93, no. 44 (2018): 62–64. ↩

43. Jijon, “Toward a Hermeneutic Model,” 153. ↩

44. Rudine Sims Bishop, “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors,” Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom 6 (1990): 3; Barack Obama and Marilynne Robinson, “On Literature, Politics, Competition, and the Meaning of Freedom,” New York Review of Books, November 15, 2015. ↩

45. Sumana Roy, “The Problem with the Postcolonial Syllabus,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (2021) https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-problem-with-the-postcolonial-syllabus. ↩