READING THE FABRIC

The Hermeneutics of the Text as Fabric and James Joyce’s Ulyssese

Abstract

Although it seems to be apparent today that language is not a “transparent medium”, interpretations focussing on the narratives of texts still seem to outweigh the efforts oriented upon how the text actually addresses the reader. The plain investigations of narratives do not concern themselves with what the text says in the way it speaks, but concentrate on assumed threads of sense and on hidden symbolism. The hermeneutic task is to engage in a dialogue with the text by way of concentrating on the surface of its fabric as texture, i.e. to ask what way the text addresses the reader inasmuch as it speaks and how one hears it. In the attempt to unfurl the text as fabric, one has to lay bare the phenomenal sense of the sign, of speech as language, of hearing, but also of the text as space. In this way, one may actually follow the intertwining threads of perception, sense and affectedness throughout the process of reading, and may thus gain genuine insight into what the text as fabric reveals. Excerpts from James Joyce’s Ulysses demonstrate how the eminent unfolding of the fabric requires attention to its diverse facets.